


On the Wrong Side of the Mirror

by IHeShe



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: BDSM, Dreams, F/F, F/M, Multi, Romance, Slow Burn, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:28:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28810389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IHeShe/pseuds/IHeShe
Summary: A young woman who recently moved to a new city, a fox who simply wants to keep boredom at bay and a butler who doesn't know what lies on the other side of dreams all end up involved, one way or another, with a lone florist, and wind up in a somewhat unusual relationship.
Relationships: Eun/Ara Haan, Eun/Nisha, Nisha/Ara Haan, Nisha/Oberon





	1. A Chance Encounter, Maybe

**A Chance Encounter, Maybe  
**

The sun had set since quite a while, and what little light the moon offered from outside the window was no match for the one provided by the perfectly average, if maybe a bit pricey, lamp placed on the table. The butler was sitting alone in the middle of a small room, going through a relatively thick pack of papers. What little furniture was present inside there was either pleasantly luxurious or needlessly expensive depending on how one felt about such things, but as a matter of fact every chair, drawer, drape, carpet and everything else in the room was of high quality. Maybe a bit relatively plain looking, but that was more of a design choice. Probably. The pendulum clock resting next to the window kept loudly marking the passage of every single second, though he was paying little to no attention to it. Eventually someone knocked at the door before walking in, without even waiting for a response from him.

The one to step inside was a maid, albeith the odd style of her clothes, mostly black and white with a few parts dyed pink and a couple of yellow decorations here and there, might have made her profession not as immediate to deduce as one would expect from an uniform of such an... iconic job, so to say. Though the same actually applied to him. His clothes, sharing the same color scheme as hers with the only difference of pink being replaced with red, were quite formal, maybe even elegant, but they definitively weren't the kind of outfit one would think of when talking about a butler. Especially because he was wearing an helmet that covered his head completely. The maid, on the other part, had her face exposed. Both her irises and pupils were yellow, separated only by a thin, black circle, and a black line that looked like -and actually was- a groove ran from her eyes down her cheeks, making her somewhat resemble a doll.

As on time as ever, the maid took one of the two empty seat present in the room and sat in front of the butler, placing a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the table, her gaze fixed on the documents still in his hands. She then moved her hand over the lamp's switch, stopping right before her finger could hit it, her eyes counting how many sheets of paper the butler had in hand.

"Odd" she commented before casting a quick glance at the clock.

"The young mistress stayed up longer than usual today" he replied to explain why he hadn't yet finished with the paperwork, as that was something he did only when the mistress was most unlikely to call him, to avoid having to drop everything halfway through. Which is to say, when she was asleep.

"A few more times and that will become the norm"

"I think so too"

The butler kept reading the papers while the maid filled both glasses, though she touched neither. The clock eventually let them know that another hour went by, but he finished checking the documents before the next one could be over as well. He placed the pile of papers on the far end of the table, took an empty sheet and wrote something on it before placing it on top of all the other one. Then he took off his helmet.

"Sorry" he apologized as they finally grabbed their glasses "There were more than usual"

"To be expected, with that thing in the mansion" the maid replied with a cold -or rather, indifferent- voice. A new hire always brought paperwork with it, and that one in particular.

"Where is Ferdinand?"

"I believe the young clean freak wanted his help with a system check of some sort"

Clean freak, she said. Well, that wasn't a wrong appellative, albeith he'd have used a different one.

""That thing" isn't how I would address her. She still comes from an important family, after all. And I've heard she and the mistress are friends" he then added as they made a small toast, bringing the subject back to the new hire.

He took a couple of sips, while she gulped down everything all at once.

"I have no obligation to not call her that way in private"

"That's true"

By the time he finished drinking his first glass, the maid had already emptied her third one, though she seemed as sober as someone could possibly look.

"This is more bitter than I remembered"

"Different brand"

"Makes sense. So, how did her first day go?"

"For a beginner, she is good at her work. In a bad way. In an horrible way. She constantly stumbles and bumps into things and runs into everyone and everything. But she has managed to not damage anything so far, one way or another. It'd be really amusing, if not for the fact that she's under my jurisdiction for the longer half of the week"

"That's something"

"You will see it yourself the day after tomorror"

"... I won't though?"

"You won't?"

She's a part timer, she works four days a week here. You're always on duty when she is, which means I shouldn't have to look after her personally under normal circumstances"

"I wasn't informed of that"

"One of the drones should have told you"

"Those piles of scapped parts are too stupid to even report their own malfunctioning half the time. I thought she worked here full time"

"She has the next three days off, every week. As far as I know, at least"

"Good to know"

"Talking about days off. I've heard voices saying that the shooting range closed"

"For two weeks, nothing more. The owner went on a holiday, or so they say"

"Unfortunate"

"Indeed"

"What do you plan to do until it reopens, then?"

"I'll come up with something"

He then looked at the clock. The butler drank another glass before standing up and grabbing his helmet.

"I'll get going now"

"It's quite late, yes"

The maid picked up the empty bottle and the glasses then they walked outside, into a large hallway that, compared to the room they had just left, was maybe a bit closer to opulence than simple luxury. They turned the lights on then parted ways. She headed back to her room to get some rest, as work demanded an early rise in the morning, while he walked to the exit. The following was his day off, after all. The mansion's garden was large, enough to take him around ten minutes of walking just to get to the steel fence surrounding it. He left the residence and walked away, the road illuminated by a few sparse lampposts. It was late, midnight had gone by already, so there was noone around. He looked up. The night sky was covered in clouds. Rain might have been a problem, as he didn't have an umbrella with him. He sped up his steps, and eventually reached what looked like a pub. A rather large one, which seemed a bit odd maybe, considering that it wasn't exactly near any big road, workplace or anything else that might suggest a flow of people large enough to justify that size.

That said, the lights were all turned off. As he approached the door, he saw a notice taped on the other side of the stained glass which decorated it. It was actually a bit hard to read.

_'We're sorry to inform that the Club is temporanely closed. All scheduled events are moved by two weeks. Contact the usual person for further details'_

"... well, this is annoying"

There went his plan for the evening. Or rather, night. And for the next day too. And for his day off of the following week most likely, judging by what was written on the other side of the door. What to do then?

_... for now let's head back._

The apartment wasn't exactly close by, but it wasn't further away than the mansion either. So he started walking again. His steps, however, came to an halt earlier than planned, his gaze falling on a nearby, two-storey building. A cafe, or maybe a restaurant. He had gone down that road many times before, but that place seemed new to him. Not that he paid much attention to his surroundings on his trips to and back from the club. The signboard said 'Henir's wine & dine', a name that definitively didn't sound familiar. And kind of gave a bad first impression, too. There were quite a few windows on the first floor, but he couldn't really see anything inside of them from that angle. Actually, by the look of it those windows seemed to be using mirrors rather than simple glass, so even from a different angle he wouldn't have seen anything lying on the other side.

He stood there, staring at the door for a while. The place seemed to be open, and his plan to eat something at the club had gone quite awry. He wasn't hungry -he physically couldn't- but the thought of missing out on his usual, proper -actual, rather than proper- meals was quite annoying.

After another short minute of reflection, Oberon stepped towards the door, grabbed the handle and entered.

As one would expect at that time of the night, the place was rather devoid of people. Almost empty, actually, with around six, maybe seven people in total sitting around. The lack of a waiter to receive him and the general feel of the place suggested that that was indeed a cafe rather than a restauran, though maybe he just had an odd idea of how restaurants were. He looked at the counter for a brief moment, which led to his eyes falling on the bartender, a man dressed in black with long, gray hair and a mask completely covering his face except for the eyes, the left one being of a bright yellow, the other apparently missing. To top his odd appearance off, there were a few chains and padlocks apparently made of bronze hanging from the neck of his long coat. When Oberon walked in, the barman turned towards him while still cleaning some glasses, his single eye apparently scanning him.

"A new face, amusing. Who dragged you here?"

He couldn't help but wonder if the place was empty because the barman scared off the customers.

"Noone did" he replied, with no idea why he would ask such a question.

"Yes, some do say that. Make yourself at home" he said back, sounding more bored than anything else.

After a few moments, Oberon decided to not sit at the counter, nor at any of the tables. Instead, his gaze fell to the spiral staircase, which went not only to the upper floor but also, apparently, to a basement. He walked upstairs, with a somewhat slow pace to see if the bartender had anything to say about it, but as things turned out he didn't. The first floor quite surprised the butler. For starter the walls, the ceiling and the floor were all black. There were four pair of dark curtains on the walls, and he guessed that behind them were the windows he had seen from outside. There were several lights, but most were either encased in the floor or placed on the walls at a low height. And they were all dark purple. There were quite a few flower vases too. And lastly, what he found himself in was actually the centre of a cross-shaped hallway, with a few doors on each arm. Just as he wondered what to do, one of said doors opened and someone walked out.

For a split second he thought he was a customer, but the man was carrying a couple of trays with a few empty plates and a couple of bottles on them, which likely meant he was a waiter. Though his outfit, white and green on the upper half and black on the lower one, wasn't exactly one Oberon would have associated with the job, albeith they were fairly elaborated clothes. Still, they looked more like something one would wear while hanging out rather than at work. To him, at least. The man's green eyes fell on him the moment he closed the door behind himself.

"Oh, hi there" he greeted with a friendly voice "Do you have a reservation by chance?"

"No, actually" Oberon replied, now feeling somewhat awkward.

"Doesn't matter, we still have some rooms aviable" the waiter said back immediatly as he pointed to the hallway to Oberon's right "The third one should be empty, probably. Or... they should be pretty much all aviable, so pick the one you like. Go ahead and take a seat. I'll be there in a few minutes. I hope. Oh, I'm Ain! And you are?" he asked as he snapped his fingers.

"I'm Oberon" he replied, somewhat taken aback by his attitude, which was maybe a bit too friendly for his tastes, at least in those circumstances.

"Oberon, Oberon... no, you're new. Make yourself at home then!" he happily concluded before walking downstairs, humming.

At that point he was almost sure that place was indeed a restaurant, though the fact that it was still open at that hour was quite peculiar. For a second or two he considering walking away, but quickly discarded the thought. He had a somewhat bad feeling about that place, but that was just that, a feeling. He hadn't seen anything really bad. Not yet, at least. Besides, leaving after having already been pointed to a table might have been a bit too rude, and since his original plan for the night had gotten scrapped anyway, Oberon decided to stay there for dinner and headed to the direction he had been pointed to. Though maybe it was a bit too late to call it dinner. Well, he didn't even know what the prices there were so, while he doubted it, there was still the chance that he could afford nothing more than an appetizer. Not because he was poor, simply because some places were unreasonably expensive.

The room he entered wasn't too spacious. The table was large enough to accommodate four people and was pushed right against the wall to gain some space, with said wall being covered by a dark curtain that was most likely hiding a window. Rather than chairs, there was a padded bench on each side. There were a few small flower vases placed in notches on the walls, and while everything inside there was black just like outside, the lights were of a much softer shade of purple, quite close to a much more neutral, cold white.

_What an odd aesthetic._

Oberon took a seat, removed his helmet and placed it on the same bench he sat on, between himself and the wall, then grabbed the menu. A short book by all means, with at least sixthy pages of dishes to pick from. It seemed almost crazy to him, but then again, considering how little he went out, that might actually have been the norm. Who knows. Though he strongly doubted it. As for what was written on it, there were some standard dishes, some he wasn't sure he knew, a worringly high number of names which he had an hard time even associating with food and a surprisingly long list of wines and drinks, as well as a section consisting of nothing but snacks. The prices were surprisingly low, contrary to what he had expected since the place did look like an expensive one.

For the time being, he decided to just go with something simple. He noticed a button on the wall, and by moving the curtain aside a bit he revealed a small plate instructing to push it to call a waiter, though he had no reason to use it at the moment. The door then opened, sooner than he had expected. It hadn't been that long since he had sat down, after all. But the head that poked inside the room wasn't that of the waiter.

It was a woman.

"Oh dear" she said upon seeing him "I thought I had booked this room"

Well, that was awkward. ... maybe?

"The waiter told me this one was aviable" he said back. Which was... kind of true? Well, he had been quite vague actually, but then again, how was he supposed to know if a room was booked or not? He didn't see anything indicating that.

"Is that so" she replied, sounding somewhat confused.

"I'll go to a different one then" he said after a few seconds of silence as he stood up.

Normally he would wait for the waiter to come back and confirm that the room had really been booked, but... things were just happening on their own, and he didn't feel like going against the flow at the moment. Besides, ending up at that table had been somewhat of a mixture between a whim and a fortuitous occurrence to begin with. Having to sit at a different one wasn't a big deal, especially because he hadn't even ordered anything yet.

"Oh, do not" the woman replied as she stepped inside "I do not mind some company. Rather, quite the contrary"

She was short. Really short. Especially compared to Oberon who was quite tall himself. Standing in front of each other like that, her forehead didn't even reach the base of his neck. She had long, black hair reaching below her knees, with a blooming, blue and white flower on her head, and he couldn't tell if said flower was a real one used as ornament or a simple reproduction. The faint but sweet scent coming from her suggested the first option, but that might very well have simply been her perfume. Her eyes were of a mixture of pink and purple, light -almost shining faintly- in the middle and darker towards the edge of the irises, a sight as odd as it was enticing. Her fluent dress, black on the outside and blue on the inside, seemed to be made of several layers, each partially overlapping with the others, each with a wavy hem. While the upper half of her body -including her neck- was tightly hugged by her clothes, both her arms, her shoulders and her hands were completely bare. The skirt of her dress was long on the back and on the sides, almost touching the floor, but on the front it didn't even reach her knees, leaving her pale legs exposed. As for her footwear, they weren't shoes. Rather, they seemed to be... fingerless socks with a small heel attached? They looked elegant though, in a way. Lastly, she wore a small pendant with a black glass at its centre. He didnt' take more than a quick glance at it, but something about that glass felt... odd.

Compared to hers, his clothes were far more plain. White shirt and trousers, black on the hems, with a few decorative red lines along them. Normal shoes. Normal gloves. His helmet was white with three black plates on the front. With that on there wouldn't be a single piece of his skin visible, but since he wasn't currently wearing it, his face was bare, his short, dark hair and his dark red eyes in plain sight. For a moment he wondered if she was artificial too -a normal person couldn't have eyes like that-, but the thought itself was foolish. There weren't many high-class nasods active and he knew all of them. That woman, howeve, was not someone he recognized. Granted, Adrian might have created a new one, but the chances of him stumbling upon a new model like that before being informed of her existence were basically zero. Still, her eyes... well, maybe she was just wearing some sort of colored contact lenses. That made a lot more sense.

It took him a few moments to realize he was staring at her. Her wrists were slender and pale. Lovely.

"I'll leave" he repeated as he turned around to grab his helmet.

"Please, do not. I would quite enjoy some company. And knowing that you left because of me would quite sour the meal" she said again.

His headwear already in his hands, Oberon turned back around. The lower floor was most likely some sort of cafe, and meeting strangers in such places was normal, but the part they were in at the moment was more of a restaurant, which wasn't exactly the sort of place one would go to meet new people. And she was acting oddly insistently towards someone she had just stumbled into. Or maybe that was just his impression. He didn't have much experience with those sort of things, which led to him not taking his own judgement too seriously. He still couldn't shake off the feeling that she seemed oddly eager to have someone else at the table with her, at least considering that he was someone she had never met before.

"... that's a fair point" he finally said.

"Thank you, I appreciate it" she replied with a soft laugh he failed to interpret.

They sat down, the woman taking the seat right in front of him. He couldn't help but wonder if she wasn't actually the owner of the place. Banal as the thought was, her clothes, her hair and her eyes followed almost the same color scheme of that floor, not to mention the flower in her hair. He wasn't too convinced of that himself though. Quite the opposite, if anything.

 _Lots of stupid thoughts tonight_ he nearly mocked himself.

"My name is Nisha" she introduced herself as she outstretched her hand over the table.

"Oberon" he reciprocated as he shook her hand briefly. Even that was small compared to his, but unlike his cold fingers, hers were warm. Which was perfectly normal for someone not artificial.

She took the menu and went through it for a while, until someone knocked at the door. Without waiting for an answer, the waiter from before walked in. He seemed to be startled for a brief moment, but that might have been simply because he wasn't expecting a second person to be there. He quickly moved his gaze back and forth between the two of them half a dozen of times, looking surprised but ,maybe because neither Oberon nor Nisha said anything about it -or maybe simply out of professionality, though he hand't show much of that up to that pint-, he simply shrugged before taking their orders.

"... Nisha, you said?" he then asked the woman as he pointed his finger at her, though the gesture somehow looked friendly "How many steps did you climb to get here?"

"Oh dear, I am afraid I did not count them. Though I am sure they were not seventy"

"Oh, of course they weren't. Back as quickly as possible" the waiter replied cheerfully as he grabbed some of the menus before walking back out, closing the door behind himself.

_What was that about?_

And then, silence.

Oberon slowly tapped his fingers on his knees beneath the table, his gaze resting on the only menu present in the room. He was used to being around strangers, but not like that. During work it was always on behalf of either his mistress or the old master, which gave him a good idea of how he had to act. That, and at the mansion there was a general atmosphere he could stick to, which added another layer of comfort in some way. But the current situation was just so... randomic. And, all things considered, informal. What was he supposed to do? Maybe he should have said something? But what? When it came to guests at work they usually weren't complete strangers, he always had at least some knowledge about them, either because the old master told him about them, because he did some researches beforehand or because he had already met them on previous occasions, so he at least had a vague idea of what to talk about if he needed to. He had made some... maybe not friends, but at least acquaintances at the club, but that was, exactly, at the club. People there were pretty much guaranteed to have at least one interest in common, which could be used to start a conversation if needed. And even then, there weren't many people he spoke to even at that place. And that woman was a true, perfect stranger. He knew nothing about her. His gaze briefly fell on her head. Maybe she liked flowers, since she had one in her hair? He knew nothing about those though.

As for Nisha herself, she had her eyes indeed fixed on the flowers on the wall. For the first while, at least. After a few minutes her gaze moved to the table, and then to Oberon. He noticed that, but said nothing. Maybe because the waiter came back carrying two dishes and a tray over which were two glasses and two bottles. He served them starting from the woman, at whom he actually stared at briefly with a faintly surprised -or maybe confused- look on his way back out, which just added to how weird the whole situation felt to Oberon.

As he was about to start eating, he saw Nisha filling her glass with something that strongly resembled and probably was fruit juice before lifting it up towards him.

"... yes?" he asked.

"A toast" she answered with a faint, soft smile.

"... with juice?"

"Is juice no good?"

"No, that's not what I meant, juice is fine" he replied "But a toast to what?"

"Do we need something to toast at?"

"I wouldn't say we need it, but there usually is something to celebrate when people toasts. ... in my personal experience, at least"

"Let us toast to this food then, shall we?"

"I don't mean to offend the chef, but while they definitively look inviting, these dishes don't really give me the impression of being something worthy of a toast"

"Are they not?" she asked, though he coulnd't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Maybe it was her soft laugh that made it hard to tell.

"... to the food then. I guess" he replied, feeling quite out of his element.

He filled his glass, albeith with wine since that's what he had ordered, and went along with the toast, wondering if he wasn't actually letting himself get carried too far by all the sudden things happening.

That said, after the toast not much happened. Or rather, nothing at all was said. He had half expected her to start a conversation after the sudden toast proposal, but she didn't, choosing to focus on the meal instead, taking a sip every now and then. He had ordered a rather normal couple of dishes. She, on the other hand, had gone for what looked like a massive amount of snacks and sweets. That... didn't look overly healthy, in all honesty. With that said, she seemd to take her sweet time savoring every bite. Because of that, he finished eating first, and spent the following few minutes not staring at her.

Mechanical as he was, he had been made to be as similar as possible to an actual human, which included several things a machine would probably deem unnecessary at best, utterly inconvenient at worst. Maybe it was because of that that his gaze kept drifting back to her whenever he didn't make sure it was focused on something else. He couldn't deny that she was pretty, after all. No, that wasn't quite the right word. Charming, maybe. But staring at someone he had just met would have been impolite.

"What kind of juice is that?" he eventually asked to break the silence. Why, he wasn't entirely sure himself.

Nisha's gaze darted to his face, a wide but composed smile on her face.

"Mango"

So, an exotic fruit.

"How does it taste?" he asked, partially out of real curiosity, partially because he felt that letting the conversation end there would have made him feel more awkward.

"How can I put it..." she wondered out loud, then, after a few seconds, she took her glass, filled it again and drank.

But she didn't swallow it, simply keeping it in her mouth instead. And at the same time, she stood up, leaned on the table -partially getting on top of it-, placed an hand behind his neck and pulled him in. Maybe because he had been taken completely by surprise, maybe for some other reason too, Oberon didn't react immediatly when, with a light gesture of her other hand, she opened his lips before resting hers on his and bending his neck to better accomodate for the exchange, the juice falling from her mouth into his. Time seemed to freeze as Oberon, taken aback, failed to move in any way, his mind focusing only on the sweet beverage flowing down his troath and on the warm skin touching his lips as well as on a couple of other things. At one point, somewhen after Nisha had nothing left for him in her mouth, he properly realized what was going on and pulled himself back, staring at her startled while drying a few drops that were running down his chin with a napkin, thought that was more out of habit than a deliberate decision.

"That" Nisha replied, two fingers placed on her on lips, a playful smile on her face "Is how it tastes. Is it to your liking, by change? Personally, it is one of my favorites flavors"

"That's... maybe a bit too sweet for my tastes" he replied, more to keep his composure than for anything else.

Oberon was about to ask why she did that -it... wasn't that he disliked it, in all honesty, and that wasn't his first kiss either, but that came completely out of left field-, but he blinked before he could finish his question.

Nothing more. He simply blinked. Something he did normally, somewhat often, like everyone else. But in the split second during which his eyes were closed, Nisha had gone back to her seat. Not only that, her glass was already half full again. And he, himself, was... not in the position he was in. The napkin was no longer in his hand.

"How can I put it... " Nisha said "... it is really sweet, and... well, just that, actually" she said with a smile "Really, really sweet"

_What..._

He stared at the napkin. There were no stains on it, as if he had never used it to clean up his face from the drops of juice.

"... is something wrong?" she asked, having noticed how confused he seemed to be.

"N... no, it's nothing. I'm just a bit tired I think" he replied.

Did he just... imagine that? He could still feel an intense, sweet flavor in his mouth, but that couldn't have really happened. His internal batteries were nowhere near empty, so all his systems were properly powered. And he didn't have enough unsorted data in his brain to cause any sensorial malfunctioning, either. So what was that? Was he simply too tired, maybe? No, that was unlikely. And even if that were really the case, being tired didn't cause allucinations. Nisha looked at him for a brief while with a somewhat concerned expression then, seeing that he seemed to be relaxing, decided to simply go back to her meal, which didn't last another five bites. Shortly after, Oberon drank another glass of wine.

"I have to go now" he said.

He was feeling a bit uncomfortable. What just happened did worry him quite a bit, and it also made looking at Nisha somewhat awkward. And both those things made him feel stupid.

"Already? Actually, what time is it?" she commented as he got up and put his helmet back on.

"It's probably almost four in the morning"

"Oh dear, already?"

As he was about to open the door, however, she spoke again.

"Are you a regular client here, by chance?"

"No, I'm not. It's my first time here, actually" he replied.

"I see. They sure have a lot of dishes here"

"Maybe even a bit too many"

"It will take quite a while to try everything out"

"It sure will"

"Have a good night then"

"Have a good night"

"Watch your steps on the way down"

"I will"

And with that he left the room. What an odd choice of words, hers was. He walked downstairs and stopped at the counter to pay. The bartender stared at him briefly, though his mask made it impossible to tell what kind of expression he was wearing.

"Be careful" he told Oberon as he took his money, though there was an odd layer of sarcasm in his voice. Careful about what, however, was something he didn't specify.

"I'll be"

"I've heard that a lot"

After that, he headed back to his apartment and remained there for the rest of the night, until sunrise. That was his weekly free day, but with the club closed he didn't quite know what to do, and ended up spending several hours lying down, doing nothing, sort of sleeping, sort of not. It's not that he had no other hobbies, but having his routine messed up like that with no notice kind of ruined his mood. Or rather, it made him feel like doing nothing for a while. Around midday he did a quick check up on his system, and found everything in order and working properly, which made him even more confused about what happened the previous day. Maybe he was just getting old? As time went by and components grew weary, some malfunctionings were inevitable after all. They could be fixed most of the time though. That said, he really wasn't that old. Maybe he was simply overthinking the whole thing. Disregarding all of that, the sun kept following its path in the sky like always.

Evening eventually came. He made some cleanings before taking a shower and getting a change of clothes, then he heard the door opening. That had to be Ophelia, since her day off was right after his, with Ferdinand having the one after hers. And, as a matter of fact, the maid was indeed in the entrance.

"You look dejected" she told him.

"Do I?"

"It's in your eyebrows"

"I see. The club is closed, probably for a couple of weeks"

"What a coincidence. The pub Ferdinand goes to closed for two weeks as well"

"That's odd"

"It surely is. Here" she then added as she handed him a couple of documents.

He gave them a quick look.

"... there was an explosion in the third hall?"

"That was the clean freak's doing. The details are all there"

He sighed. Just a little bit, but he sighed.

"I'll make sure it's all cleaned up before you get back. I'll get going now"

"See you tomorrow"

"See you tomorrow"

And with that he left the apartment, with a few hours left before sunrise. As he walked down the roads of the city again, however, his steps came to an halt in front of Henir's. His gaze fell on one of the windows on the first floor, the mirror glass protecting what lied on the other side. He stared for a few seconds, then moved on.

_"Trying them all will take a while", she said..._


	2. Stay a While, or Not

**Stay a While, or Not  
**

Oberon ran his gaze over his surroundings. All the furniture in the room was either shattered of burned, with most being both. The carpets were in an horrible state, and the glasses of the windows had shattered too. At least it hadn't rained, despite what the weather had looked like the previous days.

"How did this happen?"

"Just a little divergence of opinion" the white-haired man standing on the other side of the room -where a door was supposed to be- answered the butler. There was a red mark on his cheek, an hand-shaped mark.

"Might I ask you what the subject of your conversation was this time?"

"The old man"

"I thought you had a good opinion of master Adrian, Add"

"Oh, I do, for sure. That's the point. It's exactly because he's a genius that I, as a fellow prodigy, feel obliged to point out his shortcomings. ... few as they might be" he added in a low voice, almost a whisper "Anyway, I have my business to deal with, so don't worry about me and go ahead with your work" he said as he turned around and left, accompanied by his floating dynamos.

Oberon stared at the almost-ruins of the room, inspecting the remains for a short while. That wasn't an everyday occurrence, but it wasn't the first time it had happened either. And it was also far from the worst that those two ever did to the mansion. The butler took another quick look at the hall before calling some of the drones that took care of the cleanings in the mansion. They could remove all the pieces of furniture, the burned carpets and the likes, and even repair the walls probably, but he was afraid that at least some of the work would have required a more competent touch than that the low-tier nasods could provide. That, and he had to order new furniture. He remained for a short while to see the drones getting to work, then walked away, headed to other tasks.

The rest of the day went by rather normally. Luckily, he managed to get the the third hall cleaned up entirely before midnight, though he had to assign more drones than he had initially expected to get that result and even do some work himself after Eve went to sleep, something that, luckily enough, happened earlier than usual. He had told Ophelia he'd have gotten that done before her return though, so he wasn't even sure he could say he had a choice at that point. That said, to do that the drones ended up lagging behind in their routine cleanings, which was still something the maid would have to deal with later. Thinking about it, Ophelia was actually the headmaid now. Thankfully, she didn't seem to mind too much when he told her that. With "that" being the extra cleaning work, not the part about her being the headmaid.

The next days went by as usual, though something a bit odd did happen later that week. Unusual, rather than odd. The butler was on his way to the kitchen, since Eve wanted some tea, and as he walked through the hallways he spotted Ophelia in one of the rooms, intent on cleaning. As always, there were quite a few drones following her around. The drones and a person. A young woman with long, black hair save for a white strand. Her right eye was red, while her left one had the same color of amber. He stopped for but a couple of seconds to watch, and that proved to be enough to see her slip on... nothing, apparently, while she was polishing a vase. She started falling to the floor with a yelp as the pot slipped from her hands but, somehow, she managed to not only catch the vase before it could crash to the ground but also stick her own landing, after which she took a deep breath of relief.

He decided to walk away before witnessing Ophelia's reaction. Which, in truth, wasn't as harsh as that line might make one think.

* * *

"Again?" Ophelia commented as she turned around, her gaze falling on the new hire who was lying dangerously close to the floor, a vase somehow balanced on just three fingers as the other two held to the rag she had been using up until a few moments earlier, her other hand on the carpet as she had needed that to stop her fall.

The young woman gulped as she saw her senior staring at her with all the expressivity of a deceased fish. Her voice, on the other hand, was not as cold, though she didn't quite sound angry either.

"I-I'm terribly sorry!" she said as she got back on her feet.

"That's the seventh time today, Haan. In my presence, that is"

Ara fought the instinct of lowering her gaze, since the last time she did that Ophelia started giving her a thirty-minutes long lecture about why a maid should never avert her gaze from anyone other than her master and those equal to said master. Her arguments kind of... nearly scarred her.

"I'll try to n-not make it happen anymore"

"As long as you don't break anything it's fine. The mistress said so, at least. Just remember to never do that in front of young Grenore. The only messes he occasionally stands are those he's personally responsible for"

"I'll keep that in mind"

Ophelia then looked at the clock.

"That's enough for a break, let's get back to work"

Ara nodded in response, keeping her thoughts about what counted as a break and what didn't to herself, and got back to cleaning, though keeping up with the headmaid was no easy task. One might think that was normal, considering that she was a machine, but even the drones lagged behind her, and sometimes Ara wondered if Ophelia wouldn't have actually worked faster all by herself, since she sometimes saw her stopping to check on the parts Ara had cleaned. With those thoughts in mind, she continued her work, following the headmaind from room to room, from hallway to hallway. Eventually, evening arrived, and her shift came to an end.

"Tomorrow morning at half past six. Sleep well. And don't be late" Ophelia reminded her before sending her off.

The end of her shift always left a somewhat bad taste in Ara's mouth since, unlike her, the headmaid simply kept on working. Until what hour, she didn't know. Then again, she had seen her plug a cable from her neck directly into a power outlet to recharge herself once, so maybe the concept of fatigue didn't quite apply to her? She wasn't sure, since Eve did seem to get tired like a normal person. Kind of. She got to the room they had assigned her and in which she spent the nights between her work days. It was fairly small, but it did have a private bathroom and they even brought her dinner four days out of seven, which was more than she had dared to ask. Well, that particular evening she had said to not bring her anything to eat as she had other plans. She got out of her uniform, took a shower then changed into her usual clothes. Wedges, white socks, black pantyhose, a short, thight dress white on the front and back while black on the sides, an orange miniskirt, white fingerless gloves, a large, white coat, and a couple of hairpinds. And some underwear too, granted. She made sure she had taken everything she needed -which wasn't much- then ran her fingers along her cowlick for some reason before heading out.

On her way to the exit she saw several drones tending to the garden, but none of the other residents of the mansion. Though that was rather normal considering how few of them there were, especially in relation to the sheer size of the residence. She looked up briefly. The sky had cleared up compared to the previous days, and the air was pleasantly warm. The appointment was for quite a bit later, but since she had moved to that city only recently she didn't really know the roads all that well. And, as a matter of fact, it took her almost an hour to get to a place that really wasn't that far away, so she did end up getting the a bit later than she should have. That said, there was noone around. She stood there for a few minutes. Five. Then ten. Then fifteen. Then twenty. Then someone walked up to her.

... was that a postman?

"Excuse me, miss... Ara Haan?"

"Ehr, yes, that's me"

"I have a letter for you" he said as he simply handed her an envelope before walking away.

"... do they deliver mails directly like this around here?" she asked nobody before staring at the letter.

On it were written simply her name and the place where she was standing at the moment, as well as the sketch of a fox.

_Eun._

Somewhat surprised, she opened the envelope and read what was inside.

_'Hi Ara, it's me. I'm terribly sorry but something vaguely important came up. Circumstances suggest that I should take care of this sooner rather than later, so I'm afraid I won't be able to make it today. I hope you won't mind if I meet you up on a different day._

_My apologies._

_Eun'_

Ara read the whole thing a couple of times, wrapped it up, put it inside a sleeve then sighed. It'd been a while since she last saw Eun -relatively to how much time they usually spent together, at least- so that news was a bit dishearting.

That said, there was also the matter of having dinner. She could still get something to eat at the mansion, but the thought didn't even cross her mind since dinnertime had already gone by there and she had previously told them she'd eat out that day. That said, while they had agreed on going out to dinner together, Eun hadn't actually told her where exactly they'd have eaten. So Ara found herself walking around, looking for a restaurant or something like that, until she stumbled upon a place that, in all honesty, looked more like a bar to her. Oddly enough, all the windows used mirrors rather than simple glass. She looked at the signboard. The name sounded... nice, though that really didn't mean much. She decided to enter, and the first thing she noticed was the bartender's appearance.

"Hi there!" a loud, cheerful voice greeted her "Been a whil- wops, you're not her. You aren't, right?"

"You know Eun?" she asked back to the green-eyed man who was balancing four trays full of empy dishes on one arm. Her strand of white hair and her heterochromia made her really easy to recognize -something she was kind of troubled by- so the only person one could possibly mistake her for was Eun.

"Eh, sort of"

"Stop having fun with the clients, would you?" the barman admonished him, though his voice made it sound like he did so more out of obligation than anything else.

"On it, boss. Alright" Ain then added as he turned back to Ara "The restaurant's upstairs, but if you just want some drinks grab a seat here. Don't mind Glave, he sounds much more surly than he really is"

"Ain!"

"On my way!" he replied as he disappeared downstairs.

_Eun came to this place already? ... could this be were she wanted to have dinner today?_

Feeling that her stomach was getting close to growling, she headed upstairs to avoid having the -few, but still- other customers hear that. The structure and ahestetic of the upper floor quite surprised her, though she wouldn't say she really liked them. They weren't bad either though. She walked back and forth for a couple of minutes wondering which room to pick before eventually deciding to open a door picked at random. And, of course, there was already someone behind said door.

"Oh dear, have I picked the wrong room?"

"Ah, n-no, I just -I didn't know there was already someone inside, sorry" Ara replied as she was about to leave, but the woman in front of her gestured her to stop.

"I was in a bit of a pinch, actually. You see, I am afraid I have ordered a fair bit more than I can eat by myself, and you arrived just in time. Would it bother you to help me out?"

"... eh?"

_Wait, if she's already ordered why did she worry about being in the wrong room?_

"Oh dear me, that might have sounded more imposing than I had meant it to, my apologies. But wasting food would be a shame, would it not?"

"That's true I guess, but..."

Ara stared at the woman in front of her. She wasn't quite sure since she was sitting, but she looked shorter than her. By the look of it she seemed to be around her own age, though she really wasn't sure about that. Her dress was elegant, the kind of attire Ara expected one to wear when dancing to some sort of clas sical music rather than at the restaurant. What really caught her gaze, however, was the color of her eyes, and possibly something behind them. That, and the small, black glass encased in her pendant. She stared at that for but a brief moment, and a shiver ran up her spine. She couldn't tell why.

"You're... from downstairs, right? Those stairs, I mean?"

"Why yes, of course. How else would I have gotten to the first floor?"

"No, that's now what I meant..."

"What about you? Are you from around these parts?"

"No, I come from a different town" she replied before realizing that she had just let her turn the question around.

"Is that so" the woman replied with a soft laugh.

Ara had a bad feeling about that. She wasn't sure why, but... staring at that black-haired woman gave her a feeling similar to that she got when she was around Eun, with the difference that Eun's presence felt more... warm.

"I'm sorry, but I think I'll pass this time"

The woman suddenly turned into a black silhouette, with the only exceptions being her eyes, her pendant and the flower in her hair. The blackness then began to reflect Ara's own image before starting to grow, with what looked like thorns-covered branches creeping out along the walls and the floor. She instinctively took a step back. And blinked.

Just as she did so, everything went back to normal. The woman looked exactly the same way she did when Ara had walked in. Maybe a bit dejected, if anything.

"I understand. My apologies for having bothered you then. Have a good evening"

"S... same to you" she replied before walking out, forcing her steps to not be too hasty.

She closed the door behind herself and rubbed the back of her hand over her forehead, a few drops of sweat running down her skin.

_Alright, calm down. You've seen worse things with Eun. You were just taken by surprise._

Then she saw the waiter -well, he hadn't introduced himself as one, but what else could he be?- walk upstairs with four trais full of food and a fifth one on which were standing a few bottles.

"You alright?" Ain asked as he eyed her with a jovial voice.

"Eh? Ah, s-sure"

"The one over there is free if you want" he said as he pointed with his eyes to the room that, maybe by pure chance, was the furthest one from the door she was standing in front of.

"Oh, thanks"

She headed where she had been pointed to, and did find an empty room. Before walking in she turned her head around a bit, just enough to catch a glimpse of Ain entering the room that woman was in. She sat down, picked the menù and started reading.

"Woah, this place is cheap"

By the time the waiter came to take her order, however, she had so many pages left to go through that she ended up asking him for suggestion.

"Say, is this place... you know..." she asked him before he could leave the room.

"Eh? Oh, yeah, our clients are all from the other side. ... well, most of them. Don't worry about it. Eun didn't tell you?"

"It... must have slipped her mind" she replied, though she didn't really believe what she had just said.

"Oh, well. I'll be back in a minute. An handful of them, actually" he concluded before leaving.

_Yeah, this is definitively were Eun had meant to eat today._

Dinner itself went by normally, with nothing weird happening during the meal. She eventually walked back to the mansion and went to sleep. Her brief encounter with that woman surprised her, in no small part due to the fact that she had been told there weren't many people of the other side in that city, especially compared to her own hometown, and she probably overreacted a bit, but... the food there wasn't bad.

And, arguably more important, it was cheap.

Really cheap.

* * *

A couple of days later, early in the night. Oberon, Ophelia and Ferdinand were sitting at the same table in a small room of the mansion, two bottles of whiskey keeping them company.

"Ophelia told me the pub is closed as well"

"It is. Seems like some pipes broke and they can't reopen until they get fixed. We'll have to look for another place in the meanwhile" Ferdinand replied after gulping down a fair share of spirit "What about you?" he then asked Ophelia.

"I'm taking the chance to fine tune the shotgun, I'll test it out when the shooting range opens again. The rifle needed some maintenance too"

"I've noticed that the third hall is still somewhat empty" Ferdinand commented.

"I've placed the order, but the furniture hasn't arrived yet" Oberon said back.

"I see"

The two stared at each other for a short while, saying nothing, until Ferdinand broke the silence.

"What do you think of the new hire?" he asked the maid.

"That thing is elevating my appreciation of my mechanical heart to new heights. One made of flesh would have surely succumbed to a stroke by now"

"Is she that troublesome?"

"I can't properly complain about her since she hasn't broken anything yet. And she's better than the drones. But as a maid, she's just barely acceptable"

The conversation then went from one mundane subject to the other, some related to their work, some not, while the clock kept ticking away.

"I'll get going now" the butler eventually said after a last glass.

"Have fun" Ophelia replied.

Ferdinand simply waved his hand at him. After that, Oberon left, headed to the usual place, despite the fact that he was expecting to find it closed. The roads were as empty as usual, though finding people around at such an hour would have been weirder than the other way around. His mind going back and forth between completely unrelated matters, the butler found his way to the club as always. And, just like the previous week, he found it closed.

_'A little something came up recently. We're trying to clean up any possible misunderstanding as quickly as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience. Scheduled events are all moved to the next week'_

_Well, I had expected it_ he thought to himself as he turned around and started walking.

The sign on the other side of the door still annoyed him, but at least this time it didn't came as a surprise. He headed back to the apartment and, just like the previous week, stopped in front of Henir's.

_"Trying them all will take a while", she said._

He stood there for a short while, thinking. He had made plans for the next day as he had expected the club to be closed -and, in all honesty, it wasn't like he spent all his free time there anyway- but for one reason or another he hadn't really thought of anything for that night. He spent a few minutes trying to come up with a reason to not go inside and, when he failed to find one, decided to step in. There weren't any more people inside than last time.

"Oh, hi there!" the waiter greeted him from the stairs "The same room from before is free, go ahead. I'll be there in a... while" he told him while somehow carrying a dozen or so of bottles to the upper floor.

Oberon greeted him back in a way that seemed polite enough before he could disappear upstairs. He hadn't noticed it last time, but that waiter wore what seemed to be a pendulum as a necklace. But that wasn't really important not interesting to him. He disregarded that and headed upstairs as well, going to the room he had been pointed to. It was empty. He took a seat, removed his helmet and went through the menu again. He picked something different from last time, but aside from that everything was the same. Well, the flowers had been changed too probably. He wasn't sure. He then decided to move the curtains aside a bit. The scenery probably wouldn't have been exactly breathtaking, but still.

The moment before his fingers could grasp the curtain, however, the door opened again, the same head as last time poking in once more.

"Greetings. Would you mind if I joined you?" Nisha asked.

"Not at all" he replied as he pulled his hand back, leaving the curtains closed.

She smiled softly as she stepped in, closed the door behind herself and sat in front of him. Then... they both said nothing. For quite a few minutes. She looked quite relaxed. He wondered if he did too. Oberon made sure not to stare at her, he felt like that would have been rude of him -or maybe the reason was actually entirely different-, but whenever he happened to steal a glance he would find her gazing at the flowers. The one to break the silence was actually the waiter, still the same green eyed man, upon entering the room. Oberon sort of wondered if he was the only one they had there. The place was too big to push all the workload on a single employee, though on the other hand one might have been enough for the amount of clients they had at night.

"Say, are you two friends?" he asked after having taken their orders.

"Are we?" Nisha asked back, bouncing the question to Oberon.

"I'd say acquaintances, rather than friends"

"Makes sense. Alright, I'll be back as soon as possible" Ain commented before cheerfully walking out.

Another silence followed, albeith a much shorter-lived one than the one which preceeded it.

"I thought I would not get to see you again" Nisha eventually spoke, her eyes still on the flowers.

"Were you waiting for me?" he asked, immediatly regretting the way he worded that question.

"I come here mostly every day" she replied, apparently shooting him down with a calm voice "But I never saw you, neither downstairs nor here"

"Are you really trying out all the dishes they have here?"

"Not quite, actually. But when I do not know what to do I tend to come here and eat. Lately, at least. What about you? I have not seen you after last time"

"I've been busy. I didn't have the time to come here even if I wanted to, I'm afraid"

Their conversation was briefly interrupted by the waiter, who came in with their drinks, left them on the table and walked back out. Nisha drank a glass of what seemed to be the same juice she had last time.

"Busy with a lover?"

Oberon's eyes, which were still avoiding direct contact, instinctively darted to hers, their gaze meeting. Her eyes still gave off a weird feeling when he stared right into them.

"I don't have one" he replied after a brief pause. Pause which, however short, still felt too long to him.

"Friends then?"

"No, definitively not"

"You have none?" she asked, her tone and expression making him think that she wasn't sure she could ask that so bluntly.

"I have coworkers. I'm not sure I'd call them friends, and I'm not sure they think of me like that either, but... I suppose some might see us that way"

"Oh my. That sounds lonely, in a way"

"It isn't, really" he said back as he took a glass of wine.

"So, then... family?"

"I'm artificial"

"Does the concept of family not apply to you then?" she asked.

That wasn't actually the first time he had heard that question, but Nisha sounded... surprisingly honest. Which seemed weird. The few times someone had asked him that, they were usually poking fun or taunting him with that sort of questions. That woman, on the other hand, sounded more genuine. Which, in turn, made him somewhat suspicious. Somehow.

_Mistress Eve built me and the other two personally, while she herself was made by master Adrian. If we were to look at it the way one would look at a normal family, that would make the young mistress our mother and the old master our grandfather... ?_

No, just no. That sort of thing would have casted a really, really awkward light on several past events. And thinking of Eve as his mother would have given him an headache to say the least.

"I'd say it doesn't. We really don't look at ourselves that way, at least"

"I see" she replied, her somewhat pensive expression clashing a bit with her voice, which sounded really relaxed.

The waiter then came back with their dishes, interrupting them again for a minute or two before leaving them alone again. Nisha proposed a toast just like last week -to the drinks rather than to the food though-, to which he agreed again, before starting to eat.

"Was it an hobby that kept you busy then?"

"Wrong again"

"Eeehhh, but you surely do have some hobbies, do you?"

"Yes, that I do"

"Then, it was, it was... something ethically questionable that you might not be comfortable talking about? Or maybe what kept you busy was something morally dubious which you can not talk of in good conscience?"

He moved his gaze from his dish to her. There was something charming in the sharp contrast between what she had just said, the innocence in her voice and the smile on her face, smile which he just couldn't read. He took a couple of seconds to fully process the question before answering.

"Where did that come from?"

"Oh, from here, obviously" she replied as she pointed to her lips "Though, maybe it would be more accurate to say that it originated here? Or... maybe here? Now that you ask, I have to say I am not sure" she said as she moved her fingers to her throat, then to her forehead.

"That's not what I meant... anyway, no, it wasn't that either. Though I think I'd say no to that question regardless of what the truth was, which makes my answer quite meaningless"

Nisha giggled.

"So then, maybe it was..."

"It was work" Oberon said, interrupting her.

A part of him felt that, at that point, not telling her would have been somewhat mean, as she'd have probably kept going until she finally guessed right. And while that was somewhat amusing, he was also a bit scared of what she might come up with next. That, and he didn't want the conversation to be entirely about him.

"I've been thinking" he said back, taking himself out of the topic "This is way past the time people usually have dinner at, yet it's the second time I found you here at this time of the night"

"Oh, but that goes for you as well, does it not?"

"... fair. You could say my shift ends late"

"Really late, it would seem"

"Indeed. What about you?"

"I believe you could say that I have a few reasons for staying up until late. Nothing else"

_That's vague._

"Such as? If I might ask, of course" he tried to insist.

"Well, let me think..." she replied as she ran her fingers over the fabric covering her neck, a gesture that Oberon found oddly magnetic for his eyes "... actually, the truth is that I simply not notice how much time goes by. I am there, doing something, and at one point I realize that the sun has already set"

"That's understandable"

"Oh my, does the same happen to you?"

"Not quite I'd say, but I can imagine how that might happen"

They went back to eating, silence falling between them as a consequence. Or maybe it was the other way around. That, however, actually didn't last long.

"... say..." Nisha then spoke "... is that chocolate?" she asked.

"Yes" he replied simply as his gaze followed hers to his own dish.

It was nothing special, really. A small piece of chocolate, shaped like a cube and with a few decorations carved over it, placed on the edge of his plate. He had no idea why they'd put that together with a meat-based dish, but he wasn't the one deciding those things. He was the one who decided what to order, yes, but the menù didn't really mention the presence of chocolate with that dish. Quite the shortcoming for a restaurant, in all honesty. Oberon didn't dislike chocolate, but he wasn't especially fond of it either. Well, he hadn't tried a whole lot of chocolate in his life either, so maybe he simply hadn't found a flavor he really liked yet. Anyway, that cube was more of a little extra than an actualy part of the dish. Nisha, however, had her gaze fixed on it.

"... would you like it?"

"Oh, that would be so kind of you" she replied, and for a tenth of a second he thought her eyes, which already seemed to be almost shining on their own, literally lighted up upon hearing him.

_I'm seeing things._

"Sure"

He didn't like the idea of touching food with his gloves still on, but since he had been eating using cutlery he had had no reason to not keep them on. But he couldn't just stab the cube with the fork. Given its size, doing that would have most likely shattered it. So he took one of his gloves off, then raised his gaze. What he saw... rather surprised him. He had expected to see her open hand stretched towards him, but what he actually saw was Nisha leaning forward a bit, her eyes closed and her mouth open, awaiting.

_... really... ?_

He stared at her lips for longer than he probably should have then, against his own expectations, took the chocolate and placed it against her mouth. Feeling the treat against her skin, Nisha slowly opened her lips and moved her own hands over his fingers to pull them in closer, her lips sticking to the chocolate as they slowly ran over it, the sweet substance disappearing inside her mouth bit by bit, aided by his own index pushing it forward as well. Her lips then reached his finger and started to slowly move up along it, the warmth of her flesh mixing with that of the slowly melting chocolate, heating up his cold hand. Then something else touched him. Her tongue. He felt it gently run along his finger as she slowly licked him, her oddly hot saliva being pushed against his exposed skin together with the milk-flavored chocolate and, crazy as that sounded to him, he wasn't sure if she was licking the chocolate and somehow accidentally touching his fingers as well, or if she was intentionally licking his hand as well, as if he was made of sweets himself. Her face seemed to be a bit flushed, and... for some reason he felt like his was too. That was... awkward. Or maybe a bit embarassing. Both, possibly. But it didn't feel bad. Not at all. She even giggled at one point, though he had no clue how he should have reacted to that. Then he did what was arguably the worst thing he could have done.

He blinked.

Blinking was something he normally did without thinking, but for some reason that time was different. His eyelids started to fall without his consent, just like they always did, but he somehow realized what they were doing before they could cover his eyes. That, however, didn't give him enough time to stop them. So he ended up blinking, with no idea why that was such a big deal in the first place. When his eyes opened again they saw the cube still lying on his plate. The glove was still on his hand. His fingers were still holding the cutlery. And his index felt... warm.

"Oh, that would be so kind of you" she said as she outstretched her hand towards him.

_... again... ?_

He remained motionless for a few moments, then noticed that Nisha seemed to be getting confused by his stillness. Just like he could have sworn to have done already, he took off his glove, grabbed the cube and handed it to her. Unlike previously, however, Nisha simply took it in her hand.

"I really appreciate it" she said before placing it in her mouth and only then closing her eyes and lips as she savored it.

Oberon found himself staring at her, paying a somewhat unreasonable amount of attention to the way her jaw and cheeks were moving. Then he averted his gaze and finished what was left of his dish rather quickly. He then drank a last glass before standing up.

"You are leaving already?" Nisha asked.

"I'm afraid I'm more tired than I had thought"

"You can get tired too?"

"Yes" he replied as he put on his helmet "It's an inconvenience in the design, you could say"

Well, his sleeping schedule was all over the place, but that was because, unlike normal people, he actually had a battery and an internal generator, which changed things up quite a bit. Not as much as one might expect though.

"I do not mean to impose on you, but... would you mind staying here for a while longer?"

A brief silence.

"I'm afraid I have to decline today" he replied.

For a moment something in her expression changed, but it lasted such a short amount of time he couldn't even get a glimpse of what said change was, despite having looked at her face the whole time.

"I see. How unfortunate"

"Good night then"

"Good night"

He walked away, leaving her alone in the room. He stopped at the counter again to pay, with the bartender telling him not to sleep too much as he counted the money, a rather odd suggestion given the absolute lack of context around it. After that he went back home, then checked his whole system again.

For the second time, he found nothing wrong. He had said it as nothing more than an excuse, but maybe he was really more tired than he thought. He... didn't feel tired though. Not much, at least. And being tired didn't cause hallucinations anyway, as far as he knew at least. He spent the next hour or so doing some cleaning, then had a shower and finally lied on his bed. Actually falling asleep, however, took him quite a bit of time.

He woke up somewhat late the next day, ate something then went through his stuff, looking for a certain few things to spend the day on. As he did so, his mind went back to the club. He wasn't sure if it would have reopened before his next day off. But, for some reason, that didn't sound as bad as it did the previous week.


	3. The Playful Fox

**The Playful Fox**

The sun was high in the sky. The weather was nice. Not many clouds to block the midday's sunlight. The breeze was soft and warm. There were a few people around, but not many. Maybe because most were working at that hour. Maybe because that simply wasn't a really active part of town. The few that were there, however, all took at least a quick look at the woman walking down the streets as they went their own way.

Part of that was definitively due to her long hair, completely white except for a single, black strand, and her eyes, the right one the same color of amber while the left one was of a deep, bright red. Her clothing, however, most likely paid an important part as well in catching other people's attention.

She was wearing a black, form-fitting, sheer top made of what looked like nylon and, over that, a white shirt which, held in place by a rather large, red obi tied behind her back, showed a more than generous cleavage. Around her hips was a white, short shirt whose hem was closer to her waist than it was to her knees. Worn together, they looked like a single, short dress somewhat resembling an unusual kimono. Around her neck was an half-black tie and on her arms she wore white, wide, detached sleeves. Her ankles and wrists were covered in a double-layered wrap of clothing, the outher one white while the inner one was black. She had a white, large bow tied behind her head in a way that made it look a bit like a pair of hears when looked at from in front of her. Lastly, there were a few coattails flowing behind her back, some white, some black, all with what seemed to be a rather large bell near the tip. Aside from the wraps around her ankles and wrists, all her clothes had a few black and orange decorations here and there over them.

It was an outfit that showed more than a fair bit of skin but, even more so, emphasized the wearer's figure.

"Hi, Ara. Sorry again for the other day" the woman greeted.

"D-don't worry about it..." she replied as she lowered her gaze.

The one drawing attention was Eun rather than her but, maybe because they were twins -the only physical differences between them were the color of their hair and eyes-, she felt like the gazes of the few people around there were directed at her as well, despite her clothes being much less... interesting, so to say, at least in comparison to Eun's. Well, unless for people who were especially fond of pantyhoses probably, but that's a different matter.

"So, you said you actually found the place yourself last time?"

"Yeah, at least I think. It's that one, right?" Ara asked back as she pointed to Henir's, further down the road.

"Yes, that one"

They headed inside, and found almost all the tables empty. It seemed like there were never more than an handful of clients there. A few heads turned briefly toward them, and to the white-haired twin in particular, and Ara blushed in her stead. Eun hid a soft laugh. The bartender too had casted a quick glance at the two women as they walked in, but he looked more bored than interested. Which was a most impressive display of expressivity, considering that the only part of his face not covered by his mask was his eye.

"Pick whichever room you want, I'll send Ain upstairs when he comes back from the kitchen" he told them.

"Oh dear, have you started doing your job?" Eun asked back with a mocking grin.

If stares could cut, Glave's single eye would have probably sliced her in two.

"Still better than lazying around all day" he replied, and while it didn't really seem like it, that was more of a jab at himself than at the fox.

"You are right on that" she replied before leading her twin to the upper floor.

They picked a room without really paying much attention to it as they all looked the same then sat down in front of each other.

"So, do you like the place?"

"It's a bit... dark, isn't it? All the walls being black makes it feel colder. And the lightning seems a bit off"

"Yes, I can't say that's false. But the private rooms are nice, are they not?"

"I... guess they are? It seems a bit weird, to be honest. I mean, this isn't the first restaurant with private rooms that we eat at, but I don't think I've ever seen one that had only private rooms. ... at least, the ground floor is more of a pub, right?"

"It is, yes. Say, how is your job going?"

"Ah, eh... eheh... sometimes I'm afraid the headmaid will kill me..."

"That sounds serious. What makes you think that?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest. It's instinct, I think? I wouldn't be surprised if I saw her pull something dangerous out from underneath her skirt one of these days... and aim it at me... she might really do that if I break something..." she replied, sounding more and more distressed with every word.

"Ara. Ara, Ara, Ara. You can't just say that what's beneath a woman's skirt is dangerous, you know? You should go with a more artistic adjective"

She stared at her twin for a few seconds, then she blushed.

"I w-wasn't talking about that!"

"I'm sure you weren't, little Ara, I'm sure you weren't"

Then the waiter walked in.

"This is on the house! ... not much of a treat, but hey" he said as he placed a bottle of water on the table "... you alright?" he then asked Ara, noticing that her face was a bit red.

"I-it's nothing, really!"

"Great then! Have you decided on something to eat?"

"Ah, t... the same as last time..." she replied since in the end she didn't even open the menù and couldn't really remember much of what was on it.

"A couple of steaks for me, and something sugary to drink"

Ain wrote that down then left.

Eun stared at her twin for a few seconds, then had an idea. She took the bottle and poured some water in her glass, drank some, then put the bottle exactly between the two of them, leaving the tap off, before pushing it further towards Ara.

"Eh? Oh, no, I'm not really thirsty right now"

"... Ara" Eun then said as she placed her open hands on the table, with the palms up "How are you doing?"

She stared at her twin's hands for a brief moment, her fingers closing a couple of times to invite her. She... wasn't sure what that gesture was about, but decided to go along with it anyway and took her hands.

"Yeah, I just... need some time to internalize it. It's not as hard as I had expected, but... that kind of... feels bad too"

"Don't worry, Aren will stay in touch with you. The rest of the family, you can forget about them. I would even say you should, for your own good"

"That... might be the case, but..."

Then Ara's face suddenly turned red.

"E... Eun, your... your foot"

"Yes? What about my foot?"

"I-it's on... c-could you move it?"

"Oh my, that's quite the bold request coming for you" she replied.

Her left foot, which she had snuck between Ara's legs and pressed on her entrance, began to rub softly against her.

"T-that's not what I meant!" Ara nearly shouted, her cheeks flushed.

The stimulation itself wasn't really strong, it was really mild actually, partially because her underwear and pantyhose were in the way, partially because Eun wasn't putting much force into it, but the act itself was rather... troubling.

"Oh, what did you mean then?" she asked back with a grin.

"I m-meant to remove your foot!"

"As you wish, my dear" the white-haired twin replied as she lifted her other foot off the floor and snuck that too underneath her sister's skirt, teasing her inner thighs with her toes.

One couldn't help but wonder if the reason she was wearing neither shoes nor socks was so that she could get a better feel of Ara's legs.

"Here, I took it off the floor"

"Eun!"

Ara tried to get up from the table but, as if she had expected that, Eun tightened her grip over her sister's hands and pulled her back in right as she attempted to get away, shaking the table a bit. Combined with her feet pressed between her legs, she was holding her in place quite well. The uncorked bottle trembled in response to the table's shaking, threatening to fall over and drench one of them. Most likely Ara.

"Careful now, we wouldn't want to spill the water" she said as she pressed her toes right over Ara's clit, sending a jolt -weak as it was- up her spine.

"This is..." she began to shout.

"Oh dear, someone might hear us if you are that loud" Eun interrupted her with a smirk.

"... this is a restaurant, we can't do these things here!" she finished, with a more controlled tone of voice.

"Why not?" she asked pack as she rubber her feet against her twin's privates before appling more force.

Ara's face turned even redder as a faint, warm feeling began to accumulate between her legs.

"This is a p-public space, someone might walks in on us!"

"This is a private room, my dear"

"The waiter might come back at any moment!"

"Ain's never been fast with the orders"

"Well, he did take a while the other -no, wait, that's not it! I mean, that might be true, but still! Just! Stop!"

"I take it you're not enjoying this?" she asked back as she rubbed her toes against her inner thighs, crawling towards her entrance until she started bumping her feet against her entrance.

"That's no -I-I mean! There's a time and place for this sort of thing! And a restaurant is not one of said places!"

Deciding that that was enough, Eun opened her hands as she moved her feet away.

"Alright, alright" she said as she savored Ara's troubled, blushing face.

 _Oh, how adorable_ she thought as she gazed at Ara fixing her skirt.

"Really, you always act like this..."

Eun simply smiled back.

"Last I heard you were still staying at a bed & breakfast. Have you managed to find a place to stay since then?" she then asked.

She already knew the answer, which is why she was fairly sure that argument would have helped her calm down a bit.

"Yeah, Eve pointed me to an apartment with a really low rent, I'm staying there on my days off"

"Oh, nice. Where is that?"

Actually getting Eun to understand where that place was located took a few minutes, not because it was hidden in some sort of labyrinth but because Ara still confused some roads in that town, mixing up their names or plainly getting them wrong. Ain then interrupted them briefly to bring them their lunch.

"The rent is low you said, how big is it then?" Eun asked once they were alone again, between a bite and the other.

"More than I thought, to be honest. Actually, the place is a bit... weird. The building isn't really large, there are only two apartments in there. I know that there is someone living in the other one, but I've never seen anyone around there in the two weeks I've been there. There's also a small park nearby, but it's kind of abandoned"

"Very well. I'll have my belongings delivered there then"

Ara dropped her fork.

"... what?"

"I'm moving in with you, if you don't mind"

"... h-ho-hold on, weren't you -I thought you came here only to see me?"

"I can go back if you don't want me here"

"No, no, of course not, just... are you sure?"

"Of course I am"

"... is what you had to deal with related to you moving here?"

"Yes, actually. I am quite the prominent figure on the other side after all and, with all the privileges that entails, there are a few obligations as well. I can't just decide to move to a different town without making a few arrangements beforehand. Though the fact that I'm moving only on this side does make things easier"

"Right..."

She had gotten used to that since quite a few years, but the fact that Eun was actually much, much older than her on the other side had left Ara quite shocked back when the fox showed her around her actual homeland the first time, and thinking about that still occasionally dazed her.

Finding out that her twin sister was actually a few centuries older than her was definitively not an ordinary experience.

"You said that woman had pink and purple eyes and had a pendant with black glass in it, right?"

"Eh? Yes, I said that. Why?"

"There's someone I have to meet later and I might need that bit of information, I just wanted to make sure I'd gotten that right"

"... should I worry?"

"Oh, no, not at all"

"If you say so..."

They then finished eating, and Eun got up first to stretch her legs.

"Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?"

"Not really. There's a chess tournament I was thinking to join but they take inscriptions until the end of the week so it's not like I have to do that today" Ara replied as she got up.

Eun turned around, and for a brief moment the ribbon behind her head seemed to turn into a pair of fox ears. The strand of clothes hanging behind her back, too, took on the appearance of white, fluffy tails for a split second. Ara gulped, concerned.

"Very well then, that means you can take your time showing me your house"

"There's not much there, keep your expectations down"

"Do you have a pool?"

"What makes you think a low-rent apartment would have a pool?"

"An armchair then?"

"... no, I don't"

"A sofa?"

"... n-neither..."

"A nice, large table with comfortable chairs"

"Not... not quite..."

"Oh dear, maybe we should go shopping then. Do you at least have a bed?"

"Of course I have a bed"

Eun then fell silent, simply staring at her instead. Her smile was completely devoid of innocence, and the pupil of her red eye had turned vertical.

"... a bed, you say" she eventually spoke as she ran her tongue over her lips.

Goosebumps ran over Ara's skin as her cheeks turned red.

"I'd like to see this bed of yours this evening"

Ara shivered, for a couple of somewhat conflicting reasons.

Several hours later, however, she would mentally -and almost physically too, to hide her embarassment- bang her head against the wall. Because Eun would simply curl up on the bed, say that she was tired and go to sleep, all the while laughing up her sleeve at her twin's reaction.

* * *

Henir's was never a crowded place. There were quite a few reasons for that, some good, some not quite, but as a matter of fact the times there were more than a dozen of people there all at the same time -staff notwithstanding- were quite rare. That said, for it to be empty was just as unusual an occurrence as it being full.

"Not much to do, eh?" Ain commented as he rested against the counter.

"Maybe I should turn this place back into a dungeon"

"Come on now, that ended up really badly last time"

"I'm already stuck with you as a watch dog, how could things possibly get any worse?"

"That's harsh..."

Glave then looked at a clock.

"You know what, there are better things to do right now than staying here doing nothing. There must be, somewhere. Look after the place while I'm gone"

"You can count on me!"

"... how low I have fallen"

"Would you stop belitting me like that?" Ain said back, though his voice made it sound like he was having fun, for some reason. Maybe he was just used to that kind of banters.

"Yeah, yeah" the masked man replied before disappearing downstairs.

Ain played around with his pendant for a while, occasionally cleaning this table or that chair to kill some time, then headed upstairs to make sure he hadn't forgotten to clear any of the rooms.

Meanwhile a woman with long, black hair walked in. She looked around and, seeing that there was noone around, walked to a chair far enough from the windows, sat down then lied forward on the table, slowly dragging herself left and right against its surface in a quite disconsolate way. Then, as soon as she heard footsteps, she straightened herself up and turned around, right before Ain appeared on the stairs.

"Oh, hi there. The place's quite empty now. Quite literally empty. Hope you don't mind"

"Empty" she repeated as she looked around. She almost got up, but then seemed to change her mind "I do not, mind, not at all. Would you happen to have hot chocolate here, by chance? I am afraid I have not quite learned the menù yet"

"You bet we have! Just... let me check where exactly. And you're not really supposed to memorize that. Really" he replied as he walked away.

A few moments later someone else walked inside, and took the seat right in front of Nisha.

"Oh, good evening. ... have I seen you before, by chance?"

"Not quite. My little lovely twin walked in on you recently in this place though"

"Ah, yes" Nisha replied "That girl with the cowlick"

_Well, yes, but that's usually not what people remember the two of us by._

"I had asked her to join me for a meal, but she refused"

"Did you try to scare her off, by chance? After she turned your invitation off, I mean. With, say, thorns or the likes"

"That... oh... oh, dear me. Are you sure there were not any flowers?"

"Yeah, she saw only thorns"

"How embarassing" she replied with a faint blush on her cheeks "There were supposed to be flowers in there as well"

"... flowers. Why flowers? And how did you mix up flowers and thorns anyway?"

"Why you ask, because flowers are pretty, are they not? I thought she might change her mind if I showed her some, but... seems like I messed up. I really should apologize to her, I am not quite used to how things work on this side yet"

"You're joking" Eun commented.

"I would love for that to be the case, I thought I was quite good at it, but... oh dear... why was that though? I wonder... oh, maybe I get it. Not all thorns come with a flower on this side, right?"

"That's true for the other side as well, you know"

"Really?" Nisha asked back, surprised.

The -mostly- white-haired woman stared at Nisha for a brief while. Her gaze fell on the small pendant, and on the black glass in it in particular. Eun's red eye changed a bit, its pupil turning vertical as she focused on that object. Taking a better look at it, it seemed like that glass had been painted black from the other side.

"Oh, where did my manners go. I am Nisha, it is a pleasure to meet you" she said, interrupting the fox's thoughts with her open, waiting hand.

"Eun. Celestial Fox of northern Fluone" she replied with a not really veiled bit of pride in her voice as she shook her hand briefly.

"I am terribly sorry, but I have never heard that name nor title before" Nisha said back, looking somewhat lost.

Eun's eyebrow twitched.

"Alright, you must be from somewhere quite far. From the south maybe. Does the name Stirbargen sound familiar then?"

"I am afraid it does not"

"Berngart maybe?"

Nisha shook her head.

"Aegirp then? Luciela?... Ishmael? At least Elria?!"

Nisha had a look of genuine confusion on her face as she kept shaking her head.

"You... just let me ask this to be sure. You confirm that you are not of this world, right?"

"Well, if you are so direct about it I guess I can do nothing but confirm. I do, indeed, come from the other side. I admitted that earlier though, I think?"

"Then... how in the world do you not know any of those names? Where have you lived your life until now? Under a rock, by chance?"

"Oh, no, of course not. It was inside a forest. I did spent quite a bit of time inside some caves though. Does that count?"

"Maybe. Alright, a forest. Which one? I'm curious"

"The Black Forest"

Eun leaned back against her chair and sighed.

"The Black Forest you say. I though nobody lived there. Especially after it got razed during the civil war some decades ago"

"I do though. I have lived there for a long time"

_... well, this is quite something.  
_

"Alright, let's go with that. I've heard that you came over to this side only recently, but the Forest was pretty much destroyed more than half a century ago. What took you so long to leave?"

The question purposefully implied that Nisha already resided there before the civil war took place. The woman, however, fell silent instead of answering. They spent the next couple of minutes staring at each other, without saying a word.

"... alright, I disgress. What kept you there isn't any of my concern after all"

The waiter then came back from wherever he had gone off to with a cup of hot chocolate on a tray.

"Alright, here, sorry for the wait! Oh, hi Eun, what can I bring you?"

"Hello Ain. A coffee"

"Right away!" he said before leaving the chocolate on their table and disappearing again.

"Alright, let's move on. When did you cross over?"

"I mean no offense, but this is feeling like an interrogation, while I am more inclined to a friendly conversation"

"You're not really wrong, since I did come here exactly to ask you a few things"

"My, my, is this because of that incident with your sister? I am more than willing to apologize"

"No, that's not it. Let's just say I have my reasons"

Truth was, Eun's sudden decision of moving had caused, due to the lack of notice, some problems to the one running, one could say, their side of that town. To make up for that a bit, Eun was helping out with a few things here and there while she settled in, and checking up on the one who had crossed over without warning was part of it.

"Still, it is not really fair if I... oh my, this chocolate is so sweet and, oohh, is that milk I taste... ah, sorry, I did not mean that. I was saying, I was saying, right. It is not really fair if I am the only one answering questions, is it?"

"I would agree with you under other circumstances, but right now I'd really like it if you just answered me. Depending on what you say, we can get it over with before dinner and go our separate ways"

Nisha stared at Eun intensely. While she truly had no idea who she was, she could tell that the woman in front of her had a rather imposing presence. A sort of aura, one could say, that she hadn't quite encountered before. It somewhat reminded her of that other woman, albeith only faintly. She said they were sisters though, so that was normal. Maybe because of that, maybe because of completely unrelated reasons, she decided to play along.

"So, are you the one who crossed over around three weeks ago?"

"Oh, why yes, that was me"

"Great. Let me make this one thing clear: I'm not the one who makes the rules here. Had this been my territory, I wouldn't have cared one bit. But this area is under someone else's jurisdiction, and said someone is a fair bit stricter than me on this sort of things"

"I am afraid I am not quite following you"

"To make things short, you entered a turf without bothering to introduce yourself to the owner. It's nothing serious as long as you do drop by to say hi before long, but you still have to, you see, do that"

"Oh, so I just have to meet someone. That is a relief, you were getting me worried"

"Were I? I didn't mean that. Anyway, just introduce yourself and promise you won't cause any ruckus. Arranging the meeting will probably take longer than the actual thing though. Do you come here often?"

"Yes, actually"

"Then I'll just ask Ain to tell you where and when once it's settled, if I don't walk into you myself"

"Oh, that would be so kind of you"

_Alright, we're done here._

"... this isn't something you have to answer, but I am a bit curious. Why did you come over to this side?" Eun asked.

Which, while similar to the one she had made before, was actually a rather different question. Or, at least, Nisha perceived it that way, since she reacted rather differently.

"I came here because I was looking for... I am not sure what the word is, actually... no, that was not it... how could I say it... I was hoping to find someone to spend time with?"

Eun looked her over. She didn't have a bad figure, far from it. Well, she was definitively lacking in the chest area, but she found that it sort of suited her overall appearance. The fox's red eye lighted up, mostly figuratively, but a bit literally as well.

"If you want some company I can make sure you have a good time this evening, honey. A really pleasant time" she said with a smile that promised sins.

"Honey? Honey, honey... honey!" Nisha suddenly exclaimed, getting herself a confused look from both Eun and Ain, who had just arrived with another tray.

"Here's your coffee, Eun. Sorry about the delay, the kitchen's in a bit of a mess"

"A glass of honey, please. How did I not think of that earlier?" Nisha chimed in.

"A glass of... honey. ... well, sure. I guess. Why not" the waiter replied, somewhat perplexed.

Eun stared silently as the woman sitting in front of her, who finished her hot chocolate then kept happily giggling until her second order arrived. She grabbed the glass full of sweet, sticky nectar and just... drank it, as if it was just a sugary drink. It took her around... five minutes? Possibly more to gulp everything down, mostly because the honey stuck to the glass rather than flowing nicely into her mouth. Eun could almost taste the sweetness just by staring at the scene, which in turn made her coffee feel much bitter than it really was. Nisha kept drinking, gulping it down bit by bit, until she eventually placed the glass back down on the table. With her eyes closed to better concentrate on the taste, she ran her tongue along her teeth and over the inside of her mouth to lick off all the honey that had stuck around. For some reason, Eun could perfectly picture every motion of her tongue on the other side of her closed mouth. Then she spent another good five to ten minutes wiping what was left inside the glass with her hand before sucking it off her fingers, with a look of bliss on her face.

_I feel like I'll grow fat if I just look at her doing something like that again._

"... you're a weird one"

"Am I?" Nisha asked back with a soft laugh as she still savored the honey stuck inside her mouth.

"Anyway, my offer is still valid. Want to have some fun together?"

"... oh"

Nisha's face turned a bit red, though the change was so slight one might have easily missed it. Still, that told Eun that she had understood what she meant with that proposal. She noticed that the woman was now looking her up as well. Nisha then got up a bit and leaned on the table, reaching out with one hand and poking Eun's chest with a finger.

"Oohh, soft"

The fox blinked, and the woman in front of her went back to sitting down in less than a split second. Or rather, it was as if she'd never gotten up in the first place.

"Nice trick you have there"

"Oh, have I been caught?"

"Why resort to that though? You can just ask. Or do it directly. Actually, thinking about it... yes, I can see the upsides of doing it that way. A bit roundabout maybe, but it does let you avoid the consequences I guess. Or just mess with people even more, I guess. I like that part more, personally"

"You are really bold, are you not?"

In response, Eun decided that it was her turn to lean forward on the table, as if to show off her cleavage.

"How about finding out bold I exactly am? I'm quite curious about you as well"

"That sounds really fun" Nisha replied as she averted her gaze ever so slightly, a faint -really faint- blush on her face "But could we maybe postpone it to tomorrow?"

"I have a few chess games to watch tomorrow, and plans for the following day" Eun replied as she got back on her chair "Is the day after that fine with you?"

"Why yes, it is, thank you. But... what is chess?"

_Dear me, this woman really lived under a rock. ... well, I guess she really did, if she really lived in that Forest._

A smirk then appeared on Eun's face before answering.

"It's a game in which you move pieces on a board to catch your opponent's pieces. There are a few rules, but the most important one is that every time one of your pieces is caught, you have to take off a piece of clothing"

"Oh... oh my. People play such games here?"

"How about we have a little friendly match at it next time?"

"If you would be so kind as to teach me the rules, I would gladly try it out"

_This woman might be a lot more fun than I had expected._

"I doubt you have a board or pieces at your place, so I hope you won't mind if we play at mine. I'll wait for you here at nine in the morning, four days from now"

_Ara has work starting monday, so we can have the apartment all to ourselves._

"... what is a nine in the morning?"

_... are you kidding me now?_

A brief explanation of what hours were and how to read a clock followed.

"Oh, I see, that is quite useful. I knew of calendars but had never heard of these things before"

"You said you've been here for a few weeks now, what did you think those were?" Eun asked as she pointed to a clock hanging on the wall.

"Moving pictures? It did feel rather weird for so many different places to have such similar paintings hanged on the walls though. And they were also the only moving ones, now that I think about it"

"I... alright. Of course. They don't have moving pictures on this side though"

"They do not?"

_They have videos I guess, but I can tell her about those on a different occasion._

"That's all I guess" Eun concluded as she got up and walked to the counter.

Nisha stoop up as well and headed to the door.

"Hold on, you're not paying?" Eun asked "I mean, this place's really cheap, but not that cheap"

"... paying?" she asked back as she turned around, sounding genuinely confused.

Ain then walked up the stairs and noticed the black-haired woman on her way to the exit.

"Bring me some of those flowers later!" he said as he merrily waved her off.

"I will for sure" she replied with a soft smile as she walked away.

"... flowers. You let her eat here for free in exchange for... flowers" Eun commented as she locked her cold glare on the waiter.

"Well, you see, she doesn't really have money, but she showed me these awesome flowers, you should see them really, they are amazing, I've never seen anything like that before, so I thought I could let her pay with those instead. It's not really free if she still gives something back, right?"

"Does Glave know?"

"Oh, of course not! But who... would... tell... I beg you, don't. He'll try to kill me again if he finds out about it, maybe for real this time"

"Oh, don't worry, I won't" she replied.

She then ran her hand over her hair and, as she did so, a pair of fox ears appeared on her head, replacing the bow she had been wearing up until mere moments earlier. She gently grabbed a single, silvery hair off her left ear and handed it to Ain.

"I believe this will be enough for a week's worth of meals then"

Ain started to sweat.

"Eh, ah, ahahah, actually..." he said nervously "T-that might start to weight a bit much on my finances to... you know... make up the difference so that Glave doesn't notice..."

"Talking about Glave, there are a couple of things I wanted to discuss with him. When does he get back, exactly?" Eun replied with a malicious smirk.

"I'm honored to be granted the opportunity to accept your most splendid fur in exchange for our humble services"

The fox then bursted out laughing.

"Come on, Ain, I'm not stingy!" she said amidst her own laughters.

She then seemed to put the hair back on her ear -how exactly, one could only guess- before handing him some money.

"This place is so cheap it's not even worth it to go out of my way to not pay anyway. I mean, did you see your prices? Actually, keep everything, that should cover for her chocolate and honey too"

Ain took a deep breath of relief.

"Oh man, you scared me there. ... please don't do that again"

"Don't worry, I always keep my word" she replied as she walked away "Which is why I hardly ever give it"

"Oh, I know that. Thanks, really"

Then she stopped right on the doorway and turned around briefly.

"I didn't promise anything though" she said with a playful smile before disappearing.

Ain sighed.

"Of course she didn't, silly me for having hoped otherwise" he said with a laugh.

"Hope for what?"

"Aaaabsolutely nothing, boss!" Ain shouted as he pirouetted to turn and face Glave who had just came back from wherever he had gone off to.

"Stop shouting and make sure the place's clean, it's almost dinnertime"

"Right on it!"

"Stop shouting!"


	4. Interruption

**Interruption  
**

The door was still closed.

' _We'll reopen in two days, we apologize for the inconveniences'_

"... this is some unfortunate timing"

The day after tomorrow, so when he went back to work. Which meant another whole week before getting to go to the club. He knew that might have happened, but it still somewhat annoyed him. With nothing to do there, he walked away, stopping in front of Henir's for the third time. He looked at the mirror windows on the first floor for a few moments before walking in. The place wasn't any more crowded than usual. Maybe even a bit less, actually.

"You plan on becoming a regular?" the bartender asked him casually while filling another client's glass.

"I might be considering it"

"My condolences then"

The butler decided to ignore that last comment and head upstairs instead. Ain was nowhere to be seen, so he simply picked a room and sat at the table, left his helmet next to him on the padded bench and started reading the menù again. Just as he was wondering about waiting for a bit more or pushing the button that -supposedly, at least- would have called for the waiter, the door opened, and a familiar head poked inside.

"Good evening. Would you mind if I sat at your table?"

"I don't think you need to keep asking that" he replied.

Nisha giggled softly in response and entered. He wondered if she waited around for him to arrive to join him later on purpose, if him getting there first three times in a row was merely a coincidence, or if she simply arrived after him due to her own schedule. Thinking about it, what did she do for a living? Maybe he could ask about that later. Shortly after, however, Ain walked in, took their orders then walked back out.

"You said you were busy with your work" Nisha then spoke while taking a flower out from a vase, bringing it to her nose and smelling it "Did the same happen this week?"

"I'm afraid I made you misunderstand something. My job always keeps me busy for six full days out of seven. Last week was the norm, not an exception"

He actually used to go back home on the morning of his free day rather than on the night on the day before for roughly two years, but after Ferdinand was created the workload he had to shoulder decreased, allowing him to spend a little less time at work. He actually didn't even have a free day at all back when not even Ophelia had been assembled yet. But he decided to not go into those details.

"Oh, that sounds really stressful"

"It isn't, really. There was a time when I found myself in a rather bad situation, but that's in the past" he replied.

"I am afraid that only makes me see your circumstances as even more unfortunate" she said as she placed her ear on the flower.

"I... can see what you mean, I think"

The waiter then brought them their orders and left. The woman put the flower back in its vase with a somewhat disappointed expression, then proposed a toast -to their drinks, of all things-, before they began to eat.

"What was the bad situation you mentioned? If I might ask, of course"

"There was a period in which I found myself regularly having quite some free time while having nothing to do with it. Those days were rather... not quite dreadful. Boring, surely"

"You said you have some hobbies last time though"

"Finding them took quite a while"

"I still do not know what your job actually is" she then commented.

"I guess you could say I'm a butler. But what about you?" he asked, turning the question around.

"Me?"

"I suppose you do have a work? The prices here are low, oddly so I'd say, but they still don't give food away for free. And even if they did, you'd still need money for... well, a lot of things"

"Oh, not for free, but the waiter is kind enough to let me eat here in exchange for some flowers" she admitted, giggling a bit. Why, he couldn't tell.

"These, by chance?" he asked as he pointed to those in the room.

"Oh, no, not these. Though they are quite pretty too. I think Ain grows these himself"

"Do you sell flowers for a living?"

"Why not, I do not. I think I do not, at least"

"... I'm afraid I'm getting a bit lost. What is your job?"

"Well..." she started saying as she raised her gaze all the way to the ceiling "There were some plants and animals I used to tend to, but I... had to stop. I quite liked doing that though"

"Were you fired?"

"I would not say that, no. Though there was fire involved. Many fires, actually"

As she pronounced those words, her usual smile disappeared, if only briefly. That, combined with what she had just said, proved to be enough for Oberon to drop the subject. Actually, after that, they both focused on their meal for a short while, not saying anything. The first one to break the silence again was the butler himself.

"Do you always wear that dress when going out?" he asked, since that was still the same one she had on the first time they met.

"Why yes, I usually do. I wear this all the time, to tell the truth. What about you? I have always seen you with the same outfit"

"This is my work uniform, actually. Though I do wear it out of work too"

"Is it? I had quite a different idea of a butler's uniform"

"This one is quite different from the norm, yes"

Nisha then stopped eating, drank another glass of mango juice then stood up. Oberon thought she was about to leave. There was hardly anything left on her plate after all. That said, for some reason the idea of him not leaving first felt weird. None of that really mattered though, seeing how she stopped at a bit more than an arm's length from the table.

"So" she asked as she spun around on the tip of her almost bare feet a couple of times, her hair and the skirt of her dress waving softly in the air as she did so "Is it to your liking?"

As he stared at her, he examined a few more details that he hadn't payed as much attention to before. The middle layer of the skirt had a white, frilly underlayer, while the outermost layer had a few decorations on it, dark blue towards the edge of the dress and shading into an equally dark red near her waist The dress was closed by a zip placed behind her neck, and he caught a glimpse of exposed skin on her back, although her hair made it somewhat hard -or rather, pretty much impossible- to see when she was standing still. He wasn't sure why, but he found her completely covered neck really pleasant to look at.

The upper half of the dress was form-fitting, making her extremely flat chest appear a bit more pronounced and making the pleasant curve of her sides more prominent, with the large skirt fitting in perfectly by making sure her hips didn't appear too large -not that they were-. Her skin, already pale on its own, was made to look even whiter by the sharp contrast with the black dress, and while it didn't directly relate to her clothing, her black hair contributed to highlighting that. He wondered how much of her skin was actually bare on her back.

"Surely" Nisha said.

"Eh?"

"You said you would like to see my back, did you not?" she asked as she turned around.

_Was I... thinking out loud?_

She faced the door, grabbed her hair and made it fall over her shoulder, on her chest, leaving her back exposed as she took a step back, closer to him. The fabric held her skin tightly just like it did on the front, the cloth being so form-fitting he could perfectly make out the shape of her shoulder blades. Starting from between them, the dress left a line of skin exposed: it was a tiny, regular opening that followed her spine, leaving it completely bare, as if to invite him to run his fingers along it.

"What do you think?"

"That you look quite stunning" he answered. He had already said more than he had initially intended to apparently, but that line still came out with a bit too much... honesty? Or rather, he had meant to talk about the dress, so that sentence being about Nisha herself was... not quite a mistake maybe, but still not what he had meant to say.

"You are too kind" she politely replied with a soft giggle.

She then placed her hand over the neck of her dress, grabbed the zip and began to pull it down.

_Hold on._

Displaying a surprising flexibility as her arms bent much more than one might expect, Nisha slowly bared her back completely, the two sides of her dress falling forward a bit, held up only by her arm, her slender back growing dangerously exposed.

"So" she asked, her face turned around enough for her to gaze at him, her free hand holding her hair up to hide her own expression in an alluring way that, despite being somewhat far from her usual demeanor, managed to feel extremely fitting in one way or another "Would you like to see more?"

"We're still talking about the dress, are we?" he asked, wondering if and how sarcastic that question had just sounded. And glad that he said exactly what he had meant to, reaffirming his control over himself.

"Of course" she replied with a soft laugh "After all" she then added "I have to take it off to let you see how it looks on the inside"

After those words left her mouth, she began to let her dress fall down, slowly, teasingly even. The sight was... really alluring. Just as she did that, he realized that her back was completely bare. Utterly. Nothing suggested that she was wearing any sort of bra.

Then Oberon blinked. For better or for worse, he blinked.

Nisha was still standing in front of him, but she was now facing him again rather than presenting her back. By the look of it, her dress was also still zipped up.

"You are too kind" she politely said. Then, seeing how he seemed to be somewhat... confused, she inquired "Oberon? Is something wrong?"

"N... no, nothing"

So, it happened again. ... was she hacking him somehow, or something like that? No, that was physically impossible. Or rather, he could connect to other devices, yes, and that would open him up to hacking, but said connection required a cable to be plugged in the back of his neck, something he was absolutely sure had never happened. Besides, the only ones who knew how hacking really worked were Add, Eve and Adrian.

"I did not expect you to be such a daydreamer" she commented, apparently amused as she went back to her seat.

"A daydreamer?"

"Well, this is not the first time you gaze at the air while lost in your thoughts" she replied as she giggled "Is that not how people look like when they are daydreaming?"

That... it definitively was more plausible than the hacking, sure, but it still sounded absurd to him. Or very, very weird at least. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. Besides, if those were really daydreams, that would mean that what he saw were actually his fantasies. Or something like that, he thought.

... he couldn't deny that they were rather pleasant visions though, that he couldn't.

But it still didn't make sense.

The rest of their dinner -what little was left of it- went by normally, with maybe a little chitchat about the food or the drinks.

"Do you like wolves?" Nisha then asked suddenly, rather out of the blue.

"Wolves?"

"... no, wait. I believe that was a fox? ... or maybe a jackal? No, no, a fox, she said she was a fox"

"I'm not particularly fond of any of those. What fox are you talking about though?"

"I met a fox today who promised to teach me how to play chess"

"A fox did that?"

"Yes, she did" she replied with a smile.

He blinked a couple of times. On purpose. Because what he had just heard felt especially weird, even coming from Nisha.

"I didn't know there were foxes in this town"

"I was not aware of that neither. It was quite the surprise"

So, judging from how she answered, he hadn't hallucinated that. She really said a fox offered to teach her how to play chess.

"I don't want to sound rude but that doesn't make sense"

"It does not?"

"Animals don't talk, let alone play a game like chess. ... I guess some kinds of monkeys could play it if trained well enough, maybe, but you said it was a fox"

"... maybe it really was another animal? No, I am fairly sure she was a fox"

"It being a wolf, a jackal or anything else wouldn't change things though"

"It would not?"

Oberon stared at her, and he couldn't help but wonder if he was looking more confused than Nisha as she gazed back at him, perplexed.

"... I'll get going now" he eventually said.

"I see. I hope you have nice dreams"

"I hope you do too" he replied, though those words sounded forced to his own ears coming from his mouth.

"Oh, do not worry, there is always someone having a good dream for me"

"That's nice" he said back, if only to go along with her.

"It is, indeed"

Then he left the room first, as usual. Maybe it was just his impression, but he felt like their conversation that night had been... particularly unusual. As he thought about her words, he walked downstairs, stopping at the counter to pay. The bartender stared at him for a second or two before saying something.

"So that's who dragged you here"

"Who?"

"Who could I possibly be talking about?"

... Nisha? She was the only person who came to the butler's mind, but that didn't really make sense. So he went for an answer that sounded more plausible, though he personally didn't find it any more reasonable than the first one.

"Fate?"

"Oh, for the love of all that's entertaining, no. Fate, destiny and the likes are as real as my waiter's incoming pay rise"

Somewhere in the building, Ain tripped on the shards his own shattered hopes.

"We agree on something then"

"For all I care"

Oberon's doubt that Henir's lack of clients was caused by the barman scaring them off started to turn into something closer to a certainty. He headed back to the apartment, wondering what Nisha could have possibly meant, both about the fox and about others having good dreams for her. Maybe that was some sort of saying he didn't know of? Once he got home he spent some time reading before taking a shower and eventually going to sleep.

* * *

It was night. Probably. No, probably not, actually. By taking a quick look around, the impression was less like there was no light, and more like the place was just black. He looked around for a bit, and suddenly saw a stain of color in the otherwise perfectly black landscape. Or room. Or something else. Regardless of where he was, Oberon headed to what turned out to be a staircase going down. Either underground or simply to a lower floor. Step by step, he walked down, and found himself in a glade of some sort. No, taking a better look, that was actually a small park. The grass seemed to have been cut recently, and the same went for the bushes. The trees, on the other hand, looked like they hadn't been tended to in quite a while. There were a few benches here and there, but not much else.

There also weren't stairs. Not a single staircase, anywere in nor out of sight. Which was normal. He was outdoor after all. He walked around for a bit. The sun was neither warm nor cold. The wind was little more than a weak breeze. He strolled around for a short while, then a cat came out of a small bush, took a look at its surroundings then headed towards him. He stood still as the small animal smelled his leg a few times before rubbing its head against him, a rather unusual behaviour for a wild cat. He stared at it for a short while before walking to a nearby bench, sitting down and starting to sew something. As for where he had taken threads, needles and everything else, they just appeared in his hands as he needed them. That was perfectly normal. The cat stared at him for half a minute or so before jumping on the bench next to him and curling up not too far but not too close either, at just the right distance to not get in his way.

Time went by, but without a clock it was hard to say how long he spent sitting on that bench. By the time he had finished sewing, however, the sun seemed to not have moved at all, so it had probably been just a few minutes. He looked at the piece of clothing in his hands, added a couple of details, fixed a few parts, then left it on the bench and stood up, stretching his legs. He heard a bell ringing behind him, which was probably the cat playing with said bell.

"How nice to meet you here" someone then greeted him, which caused him to turn around.

Nisha was standing a few steps away from him, right in front of the bench, holding her arms behind her back, her gaze high to look at his face. She looked remarkably normal. Nothing seemed off. Especially not the pair of cat ears coming out from her hair, not the two tails he spotted behind her, not even her legs, which looked exactly like those of a cat up until slightly below her knees. Those were completely ordinary. That said, she wasn't wearing her usual dress, but the one he had just sewed instead. A short, purple kimono that didn't cover her legs any better than her usual outfit did, with a few decorations here and there, kept closed by a dark red obi, with long sleeves and a bell attached between the breasts and neck.

"It's nice to see you too" he greeted her back.

The kimono looked a bit loose, but that was simply because her usual dress was basically form-fitting and clothes that didn't hug her body as thightly all looked somewhat large in comparison. The size was actually perfect for her. Nisha turned around a couple of times then hit the bell with her paws -cats don't really have hands, so her having paws didn't surprise him at all- a couple of times, making it ring, and giggling softly in response to the sound.

"Do you like it?"

"I am more inclined to tighter clothes, but this does not feel bad either" she replied as she kept playing with the bell.

"I was about to take a walk around here"

"Would you meowind if I joined you for that?"

"... come again?" he asked, though a part of him wasn't sure what exactly it was that surprised him.

Realizing what she had just said, Nisha covered part of her face with her paws to hide her cheeks. Though, while they were blushing, the redness was so faint it wouldn't have been weird if Oberon hadn't noticed it at all from that distance.

"I would quite like to join you, if that does not bother you"

"Not at all"

So they did just that, taking a stroll around, moving mostly in circles around nothing particular. Sometimes a tree, sometimes a bush, sometimes a flowerbed. Not much time went by probably, as when he looked up he saw the sun still in the same exact spot it was when he arrived there earlier. Then Oberon noticed that there was something in his pocket.

"Oohh, milk" Nisha commented as she stared at the bottle he had just taken out from his trousers.

"It sure looks like milk" he replied before pouring some in a glass he was holding with his other hand and drinking it "It tastes like milk too"

He then realized that his helmet was nowhere to be seen. He didn't really mind that though.

"Say, can I have some?" she asked with a faint light in her eyes as her hand reached for the bottle.

For some reason, however, he moved it out of her way just before her fingers could touch it. After a few moments of pause, she tried to grab the bottle again, but he moved it away a second time. The same scene repeated a third time, then a fourth one, and then again. Nisha was getting a bit carried away, and with every attempt she got closer to throwing herself at the hand holding the bottle, which somehow managed to always remain out of reach. Her ears twitched a couple of times, her tails waving left and right. She looked frustrated. It was... kind of adorable. Then she finally launched herself at the bottle, and in response Oberon held it high above himself.

Nisha got on her tiptoes in an attempt to reach it, but the height difference between them was just too great. So she tried something else, and jumped. That said, her performance was so poor any cat would deny any and all association with her upon seeing how short her jump was. That, however, didn't stop her from keep trying. After the umpteenth failure she puffed her cheeks in frustration -a lovely sight, if maybe a bit mean considering what brought it about-, then leaned against him, placed an hand over his shoulder and jumped again, this time pulling herself up as well, using Oberon's body as both footing and wall to climb. Maybe because he hadn't expected that, maybe for some other reason, he lost his balance and fell backwards on the grass. Nisha managed to soften her landing by using him as a pillow, ending up on all fours on top of him, but the milk ended up spilled. Mostly on him, somehow.

Nisha stared at him intensely for a few seconds then leaned down and started to lick the milk off his face. He placed an hand over her head and began to scratch her behind her cat ears. She stopped for a moment, wondering if she should keep drinking or push her head against his fingers instead, but eventually decided to stick to the beverage and kept running her oddly rough tongue over his face and neck. Why exactly the milk wasn't dripping to the floor instead of sticking to him, one could only guess.

She kept doing that for a while, until she got him completely dried up, then she readjusted herself on top of him, sitting with her legs to his sides. She scratched her head a couple of times with her hind paws.

"That was really sweet"

"Am I that comfortable?"

"Why yes, you are" she replied with a soft giggle as she started licking the fur on her arms to clean it a bit.

Then she sniffed the air a few times.

"Do you smell something, by chance?"

"No, I'd say not" he replied.

Nisha closed her eyes to better concentrate on the scent that had tickled her nostrils. As she did so, Oberon felt something in a different pocket. The woman's face slowly creeped down to the ground, or rather to his chest, then moved down as she kept sniffing the air, eventually reaching his pocket and pushing her noce against it. So he pushed his hand inside and took out its content. A fairly large amount of leaves. He brought it close to his face to take a better look and noticed that they did have a rather nice scent. Then he saw Nisha's eyes, glued to said leaves. She reached forward, slowly, and he moved his hand away at the same speed. She started to lean forward, more and more, as the leaves kept getting further away, and eventually she ended up lying completely on top of him. Even from that position, however, she couldn't reach his hand, his outstretched arm being too long for her short limbs. He closed his other arm around her waist to make sure she wouldn't crawl over him to get to the leaves, but Nisha seemed to not even attempt that, squirming softly in an oddly unproductive but somewhat alluring way instead. She kept trying to reach his hand, apparently completely enraptured by the scent coming from within it, her bare neck right next to his face.

Nisha then meowed in frustration.

After a few seconds during which Oberon found himself frozen, he rolled over on his side, making her fall gently enough on the grass as he got on his knees. That said, she managed to close her paw around his arm and pull his hand over her face, audibly taking in the leaves' scent.

He then decided to go along with it and slowly rubbed the leaves over Nisha's face, her paws accompanying his gesture as the aroma filled her nose. Oberon then let go of the leaves, which she promptly grabbed and kept pushed against her nose, occasionally licking them too, rolling around a bit on her back as she did so, chewing one every now and then. The butler moved his free hands over her belly and started to massage her through her clothing, in response to which she started to, well, purr. Cats do that sometimes. He kept rubbing her for a while, eventually sliding an hand underneath her kimono to touch her skin directly while waving a cattail that had appeared somehow in his other hand above her. Nisha stared at it for a few moments before starting to wave her paws at it, trying to catch it, but the toy seemed to quickly lose her interest as she started to ignore it in less than a minute.

She then turned around, got on all fours and leaned down on the grass, starting to bite and chew the leaves that had fallen from her face in the process. Letting go of the cattail, Oberon moved his hands behind her ears and below her chin, scratching her again. Her purring grew louder as she dropped down, almost lying on the ground, occasionally turning her head this or that way or pushing it against his fingers to get him to scratch a specific spot. She then started to walk around a bit -on all fours-, only to come back to him to get more scratches upon noticing that he wasn't following her. They kept doing that for what felt like a long time, but the sun still hadn't moved an inch from its spot in the sky, so it probably actually was a rather short while.

Then she turned around to face him, placed her paws on his shoulder and started to rub her head against his neck. Maybe because she was too short to reach his face while they were both on their knees. He then noticed that the obi around her waist had come undone and fell to the ground, letting the kimono slide open. Though with Nisha sticking that close to him he couldn't really see anything anyway. She then placed her paws over his shirt and tried to unbutton it. Since she didn't quite have fingers, however, she ended up struggling with that for quite a while, and her stopping fairly often to purr at him scratching her behind her cat ears didn't quite help with that. At one point he decided to push her away a bit, just enough to reach his shirt with his hands, and unbuttoned it himself. Why, he wasn't quite sure.

Nisha then pushed herself against him again, sliding her paws underneath his unbuttoned shirt. Her pads felt rather nice on his skin, and her fur was quite soft and warm too. In response, he moved his hands beneath her kimono and placed them on her back, right above the base of her tails, and started scratching her there. Nisha's purring grew louder. He then moved an hand to her chin and rubbed his fingers against her skin there. Nisha's reaction consisted of raising her head to give him an easier access, her eyes closed to better focus on the massage. That way, he noticed that her face was a bit flushed. He wondered if his was too. Then he lowered his head as well, enough to place the tip of his tongue over the tip of her nose.

For a brief moment her purring stopped, and Oberon's heartbeat would have done the same had he had a normal, biological one. That, however, only lasted a moment, and as she started purring again, he slowly ran his tongue up her nose, all the way to her forehead. Nisha readjusted her position a bit, using her paws as resting point to lean against him as he licked her cheek. The sound coming from her changed somewhat. He couldn't quite tell how exactly, but if her purring sounded relaxed before, now it felt more... alluring. If that made sense.

He kept slowly running his tongue over her face in long strokes. A part of him was confused about why exactly he was doing that and why she seemed to enjoy it that much, while the other part wondered what was wrong with the first one to find such normal things weird. He then realized that his hands had both moved to her lower back, and from there he slowly ran them even further down, his fingers tracing a line over her rear before sliding past it, reaching her legs. He then started to rub her inner thighs, Nisha's breathing getting a bit ragged in response, her face growing more flushed. He then placed his tongue on her forehead and slowly moved it down her nose, then on her cheek, and eventually reached her lips, running it over them once, then twice. She opened her mouth, revealing a pair of lovely canines. His fingers traced closer and closer to her crotch as he slowly found his mouth closing in on hers, naturally dragged in by her faintly blushing cheeks, her closed eyes, her alluring purrs, the feeling of her pads over his chest, everything.

Then something ringed.

Oberon woke up in the apartment he shared with Ophelia and Ferdinand. There was a loud sound coming from an alarm clock. Right. They had that there. He reached for it and turned it off, then looked outside. By the look of it, midday had already gone by. Well, he had gone to sleep fairly late, so waking up at such an hour wasn't weird. Not too weird, at least.

"What in the world was that... " he asked himself as he reminisced his dream.

 _A catgirl? Nisha? For the love of rationality, what's gotten into me?_ he wondered as he stood up.

He mentally apologized to her for having had such a weird dream involving her, then went about his typical day-off business. Maybe a bit less concentrated than usual, if anything.

* * *

Somewhere else, Nisha suddenly fell on the grass, alone. She rubbed the back of her head with her paws a bit before brushing her face against the fur covering almost half of her arms.

"... where did he go?" she asked herself as she looked around, somewhat lost.

She scratched her head with her paws in confusion before realizing that he had woken up. She did hear an annoyingly loud ringing coming from far away, actually. That was probably what interrupted his sleep. Maybe she should have considered that something like that could have happened.

"I would have liked a bit more milk" she commented as she looked around a bit, found the leaves from earlier and started chewing on them again.

Then she took another long glance around. Her surroundings were fading away into nothingness, but she looked perfectly calm despite that.

"You have my thanks for the dream. I hope you will have me again for the next one" she said giggling as a staircase heading up appeared in front of her. As she was halfway through its seventy steps, however, she realized something.

"Oh, I should thank him when he can hear me though, right?"

As the dream crumbled into nothing following the waking of its dreamer, Nisha headed back to the waking world, thinking to herself that she had not expected to get cat features in Oberon's dream.


	5. A Relaxing Morning

**A Relaxing Morning  
**

"Ara, wake up. Ara. It's morning. Ara?"

"Five... more... minutes..."

"As you wish"

Humoring her twin's request, Eun stepped away from the bed and headed to the kitchen to make breakfast. She wasn't exactly a great cook, but she could still put something together, as long as it wasn't too complex. Once she was done she headed back to the bedroom, where Ara was still lying, more asleep than awake. She had pushed a good half of the sheets off, one way or another.

"Ara, dear. You should really get up now"

"Another... five... minutes..."

Eun smirked. That was the tenth time she had heard that line. The tenth time that morning, that is. So she got on the bed, rubbed her hands together, moved the sheets away a bit to properly expose her target, then smacked her twin's rear, somewhat hard at that. Ara shrieked in surprise as she suddenly felt a sting -a rather mighty one- hitting her bottom, jumping to her knees in response. After a split second of disorientation, she turned around to face her twin and her amused smile.

"What was that for?! ... and why are you naked?!"

"Good morning, Ara. Breakfast is ready. And please, don't mind the details"

"Morning, breakf -wait, what time is it?!" she asked as she turned to the clock hanging on the wall.

"It's past your alarm. Past all of them, actually. Which honestly surprised me, since you're not late yet. Did you start setting them up earlier than needed?"

"I had to, to grow out of waking up too late" she replied as she got up and headed to the bathroom to wash her face.

"Oh, you finally started getting off the bed in time?"

"... I'm working on it" the black-haired twin replied with a somewhat mortified voice from the other room "And wear something!" she then added, to which the white-haired twin complied.

Breakfast went by normally, which is to say somewhat loudly as Eun liked to tease Ara at every chance she got and Ara still had an hard time dealing with that. Especially when all the fox had put on was her underwear.

One could argue that Ara really shouldn't have gotten so flustered about such things. They were twins after all so, in a way, Eun's naked body was something she was bound to see whenever she took a shower by herself. Well, their hair and eyes were a bit different, but those weren't the parts that bothered her in the first place. But Ara was Ara, and seeing anyone naked was enough to agitate her. Actually, Eun looking pretty much exactly like her might have made things even more awkward for her.

"Alright, this should be everything" she told herself as she finished packing up her stuff "I'll get going now, take care of the house"

"Sure I will"

Eun waved off her twin as she headed to the mansion she worked at, then closed the door and took a look around. There was still plenty of time before her appointment with Nisha at Henir's, so she decided to do some chores. Not really something she was used to, but whatever. She made the bed, cleaned the kitchen, made sure the washing machine was empty, that sort of things. Then she opened a drawer of the bedside table and made sure a few things were still where she had left them. At last, she got dressed -fully this time-, closed all the windows then left, locking the door behind her before walking to the only other apartment of that building. She knocked at the door, more out of boredom than real curiosity or interest, but noone answered. She tried again a couple of times, then concluded that there wasn't anyone in and left.

She took a needlessly long road to Henir's, partially because she just felt like taking another look at the city since that place was still rather new to her, partially simply because she had time. As a matter of fact, by the time she arrived there it was still a short while before nine. She walked inside, getting a couple of gazes from all the customers present -literally just two- before sitting at a table.

"Here again?"

"I hate to see you too, Glave"

"What do you want?"

"Some coffee would be nice. Where's Ain?"

"He's cleaning up a mess downstairs" the barman replied.

Shortly after, a cup of coffee was sent flying across the bar, landing perfectly in front of Eun, somehow not spilling a single drop along its flight.

"Quite the innovative table service"

"A shame that I missed. I blame my right eye for that"

"How sour of you"

Not much time went by before Nisha walked in, took a somewhat slow look around, saw Eun and walked to her table, sitting in front of her.

"Good morning"

"Hello"

She then turned towards Glave.

"Could I have a chocolate bar, please? Strawberry flavored, if possible"

"What makes you think we have strawberry flavored chocolate here?"

"You do not?" she asked back with a faint disappointment in her voice.

"Of course we do" he replied.

The barman then reached below the counter and grabbed just that, a bar of strawberry flavored chocolate, then threw it. The small treat landed on a nearby table, bounced off it, turned on itself three times as it spun around and finally landed vertically right in front of Nisha, who had stared at the whole thing with glittering eyes. Despite what its performance might have suggested, the bar didn't bow to its audience. It didn't move at all actually, which was fairly understandable considering it was just chocolate.

Or, if it did bow, nobody saw it.

"Ooohhh, that was increbile!" the short woman commented as she clapped her hands.

"Someone who appreciates me, at last! That's on Ain's paycheck then, enjoy it"

"Oh my, thank you"

Eun turned to Glave.

"I sure am glad I never had to work for you"

"I'm glad I never had to have you work for me too"

Nisha's gaze moved back and forth between them for a couple of seconds as she took her sweet time savoring the chocolate bar, which was perfectly intact when she unwrapped it, contrary to what the delivery method and logic would have suggested.

"Alright, I'll wait for you outside" Eun then said as she stood up, took a quick detour to the counter to drop some money on in then left.

Nisha stared at her, then moved her gaze back to Glave. The way she was eating the chocolate sort of made her look like an hamster, but the barman either didn't get that impression or didn't care, simply cleaning a few glasses as he glared at nothing. Once the sweet bar got completely terminated, Nisha headed out too.

"Still sure about this?" Eun asked her with a smile as she scanned her from head to toe again.

The fact that Nisha was basically barefooted too faintly bothered her, but it was nothing she couldn't simply ignore.

"I am a bit nervous, if I have to be honest" she replied with a soft giggle and an ever so slightly averted gaze.

"Oh, really? Why?" she inquired as she started walking, Nisha promptly following right behind.

"You see, judging from what you said, I believe there is a strong chance I will end up naked"

"Nobody's ever seen you unclothed before?"

"There is one person who did, but that was a fairly different context. This one is a bit more embarassing"

"You sure don't seem to have a problem talking about getting naked while walking down a public street"

"Oh dear, you are right"

Well, not like there were many people around anyway, though that did seem a bit odd. Maybe it actually wasn't though. Neither of them were really acquainted with the town yet. There was one person who happened to turn their way upon hearing their conversation, but simply walked off to wherever he was headed. Eun took a more direct road compared to the one she had picked earlier that morning, so getting to the apartment didn't take as long. Nisha stood in front of the fence for quite a while, looking at the building.

While that was technically an apartment complex, it didn't really look like one. It consisted of just two buildings, not that distant from each other but not too close either, each facing the walkway that connected their front doors to the fence's gate, forming a somewhat short but wide 'T'. Both apartments, though calling them houses would have probably been more accurate, had a single floor. As for their size, they weren't that big. The area around them was mostly empty, with grass and unused ground surrounding the two somewhat isolated apartments. It looked a bit like they had started building in that area but abandoned everything for some reason after having completed that one complex.

Nisha looked at the plants outside both apartments, plants which didn't look all that tended to, though they weren't in horrible conditions either. Then she followed Eun through the fence and into her -well, her and Ara's- house.

"Do you want something to drink?" the fox asked as she pointed to a table with two chairs while she walked off to the kitchen.

"Do you have juice, perchance?"

"Only lime juice" she replied from the other room.

"Oh, I have never tried that"

Eun spent the next second in deep reflection. Nisha was a sweet tooth, it didn't really take a genius to see that. And lime was really, really sour. Common sense, or maybe simple courtesy, dictated that she should at least warn her about it. Granted, it was kind of weird for someone to not know what lime tasted like, but that kind of fit the image Nisha gave off.

"Here, have some" Eun said as she placed two glasses on the table before sitting in front of the pink-eyed woman.

Nisha stared at the juice with an inquiring gaze, then looked up to her host who, maybe in response to that, took the other glass and gulped it all down. It took quite some effort to do so without reacting to the sourness, but she managed to do that. As if reassured by the sight, Nisha took her glass, brought it to her lips and drank.

Her pinkie twitched. Her eyes lost their focus. Her hand slowly dropped to the table, a few drops jumping from the glass when it hit the wooden surface. A single, lonely tear began to trail down her face.

"This... I am afraid this might... be a bit too... sour for me..." she eventually said between long, deep breaths.

_It looks like you just ate something spicy rather than acid._

Eun looked at Nisha's pinkie, which was still twitching. Noticing that, the woman placed her other hand on it and closed her eyes.

"I just... need a moment... my... apologies..."

_Not quite what I had expected, but this is fun too._

Eun went to the kitchen and came back a few moments later with another glass filled with water, inside of which she had thrown a spoon of sugar for good measure.

"Here"

"Oh my, thanks, really" Nisha replied with a faint sparkle in her eyes.

The sweet drink seemed to normalize her breaths, and her pinkie stopped moving on its own too.

"I believe you just saved me, I offer you my most sincere gratitude"

Eun laughed silently.

"Oh, don't worry, it was nothing. So, feel like learning a new game?" she replied, finally bringing chess into the conversation.

"Why yes"

She placed a fairly average, wooden chessboard on the table, and started illustrating the rules. Nisha seemed to get everything fairly quickly, though one could argue that the rules of chess weren't anything difficult to learn to begin with.

"Any questions so far?"

"No, I would say no"

"Perfect. So, about the strip part, that's quite simple too. Every time one of your knights, bishops or rooks is captured, you take off a piece of clothing. You remove two instead if they get captured by a pawn, or if the piece you lost was your queen. And you can put one piece back on whenever your queen or king takes a piece. Checkmate means three more pieces of clothing come off"

Nisha stared at Eun before moving her gaze to herself.

"I am afraid I am at a disvantage"

"Oh, don't worry. People usually wear ten articles of clothing for this game, but it looks like you don't even make it to seven, so... let's just have your dress and bra count as two each"

"I have no intention of sounding fussy, but I do not believe that would be enough to even the playing field"

"Right. What about this: I'll take two pieces off instead of one the first three times I have to strip. That should be enough, I think"

"I think so too, yes"

"Well then, would you rather go first or second?"

"I... I think I will go first" she replied after having looked again at the board, reminding herself of which color was the one that had the first move.

And so the game started. Nisha's first few moves took a while, maybe because she was mentally going through the rules a few times, and Eun took more time than she really needed for her turns to not put too much pressure on her. The first moves didn't really go anywhere in particular, partially because the fox didn't feel like playing seriously against someone who was at their first game. She did notice, however, that Nisha seemed more interested in defending her pieces rathen than capturing her opponent's ones, even when they were purposefully left on a dangerous square. So she decided to take a more aggressive approach. Nisha's shoulders dropped a bit when her first pawn was taken. Instead of taking one of Eun's in return, however, she moved in a more easily defensible position.

Normally, the fox wouldn't have minded that. However, since winning wasn't her goal but a simple mean to an end in that match, she decided to push forward a bit more, this time leaving her attacking pieces wide open, even more blatantly than before. A couple of paws got taken on each side.

"This is a fairly violent game, is it not?"

"I don't think so, no"

Nisha started playing even more defensively, and considering what Eun's goal was, that played right in her favor, since it made it easy to set up piece-for-piece trades. After that, it didn't really take long for the first piece of clothing to fall.

"... oh"

"That's one" Eun said as she held one of Nisha's rooks in her hand.

Nisha looked at herself for a few moments before reaching for her feet and baring her left one.

"Fairly typical"

"I believe I can see why"

Nisha then caught one of Eun's knights, exactly as the fox had planned. Eun reached for the cloth around her left wrist and took it off. Since, to make up for the difference in amount of clothes they were wearing, she was to take off two pieces, one might have expected her to go for the cloth on her right arm too. What she actually did, however, was reach behind her back to untie her obi and take off her shirt. And while she was wearing a nylon top beneath, that didn't really cover her skin. It was more accurate to say that it simply made it look darker than it really was. Combined with the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra -wether that was normal or something she did for the occasion, one could only wonder-, it wouldn't have been too far off to say that she had just bared her breasts.

"... oh... oh my" Nisha commented with a faint blush on her face.

"Like what you see?"

Nisha casted a quick glance at the windows, and noticed that all the curtains were pulled. They weren't thick enough to block out the light, but they did a good job at hiding whatever was on the other side.

"It is a remarkable view, yes"

Eun's gaze fell on Nisha's flat chest for a moment. Then she smirked.

"Alright, next move, let's see..."

She didn't want to end the game too quickly, but she also wanted to see a few more clothes falling before deciding about wether to stall the match or not. So she kept going with her apparently recklessly aggression, cathing pieces while leaving hers unprotected so that they could get captured too. Nisha bared her other foor, while Eun took off her other wristbands and her headgear. The bloodbath continued, and things started to get interesting -or more interesting, one could say- fairly quickly, when Nisha lost her second rook. She stood up, reached beneath the skirt of her dress and removed her panties, leaving them on the floor before sitting down again.

"Now that's more in line with what I had expected of you"

"My, my, what kind of impression do you have of me, I wonder?" the pink-eyed woman asked as she captured one of Eun's rooks in response.

"I'd like to remind you that you casually touched my chest in a public space, during our first meeting" the fox replied as she took off her sleeves.

"That I did" she said back with a giggle.

Eun decided to get a little more serious, and stopped leaving her pieces as exposed. In part because, over the years, a bit of Ara's fondness for chess had rubbed off on her, making her at least a bit interested in what exactly Nisha could actually pull off without being spoon fed good moves from the opponent. Granted, she wasn't expecting anything spectacular from someone at their first game anyway, but still. And in part because she just wanted to make her strip some more.

"Check"

"How cruel of you to threaten an innocent girl"

"This is the first time I've ever heard someone refer to the king as "innocent girl", I'll give you that"

Nisha seemed to keep insisting with her defensive playstyle, but Eun did notice that the white pieces were starting to take a more threatening position on the board. She wondered if that was just a coincidence or if her opponent wasn't as clueless as she seemed to be. Being confident in her own skills and not minding having to take off some more of her clothes anyway, she decided to ignore that.

"Check" Nisha then declared.

"Nice move" Eun replied as, with a single move, she captured her opponent's knight, saved her king and checked Nisha's one "Nice move for sure" she repeated.

"Oh... oh, dear me. This is most embarassing"

The fox thought about wether to put something back on or not, since she had used her queen to catch Nisha's knight. After a couple of seconds she decided to reach for her shirt and wore it again.

"Oohh, I was not expecting that"

"You weren't?"

Nisha nodded in response as she reached behind her back and unzipped her dress, which then fell forward, revealing her black, lace bra.

"Would this be enough, considering that we agreed to have my dress and bra count as two each?"

"Yes, I'd say that's perfect" the fox replied.

And, as she stared at Nisha's chest, she couldn't help but wonder if she really needed a bra at all, considering how flat she was. The game then continued, with Eun cheerfully giving a paw and a rook in order to get a bishop and a knight, all the while making sure Nisha's queen couldn't capture anything. The fox followed her opponent's example and took off her panties, while Nisha unhooked her bra and removed the flower from her hair. That last part took quite a while as she did so rather slowly. The stem was oddly long to say the least, and had a worrysome amount of thorns on it. Eun didn't comment on that though, simply gazing at the woman in front of her as she rearranged her hair a bit, since the spines had messed it up upon being pulled out.

"Nice look"

"You flatter me" she replied with a soft blush.

The fox then decided that the game had been going on long enough, and got serious. More serious, at least. Nisha, on her part, started to not notice a few of Eun's apparently unprotected pieces. Wether that was really the case, she recognized them as baits, or she simply didn't notice them at all, it was hard to say. And while normally such a playstile would have greatly annoyed the fox, seeing her opponent move carefully as to not accidentally drop her own unhooked bra was amusing enough to make up for it. That said, it didn't take long for their match to come to an end.

"Checkmate"

"I am afraid it is"

Silence befell them as the two women stared at each other for a few seconds. Then Nisha stood up. Maybe due to how form fitting it was, her dress didn't fall off her sides despite being unzipped. She removed her bra with a somewhat sheepish smile, then reached for her gown, roughly around her waist. She seemed to have to force it down her hips a bit, but once she had gotten it past them she easily got out of it. Oddly enough, of all the places she could have covered with her arms she decided to hide her belly button.

"The rules said three pieces"

"They did, but I cannot take this off" Nisha replied as she closed an hand around her necklace.

"... well, fine. It's not like it obstructs the sight anyway" Eun said back with a wide smirk as she stood up "Would you like something to drink? Something not as sour, of course"

"Why yes, I would" she replied, her calm voice betrayed by her cheeks, the redness on them now fairly easy to spot.

Shortly after, they were both drinking a glass of water, since there wasn't much in the fridge to pick from.

 _I need to buy some groceries_ Eun reminded herself before starting to walk in circles around Nisha, who was still naked and standing. The fox was a fair bit taller, but the difference wasn't too pronounced, at least compared to that with Oberon. As a matter of fact, Nisha's head reached around Eun's eyes. She remained relatively still as the other woman took rather slow steps around her, following her with her head without turning around herself.

"Would you mind if I put my clothes back on?"

"Feeling cold, by chance?"

"Oh, no, not really, though I appreciate your concern"

Eun casted a quick glance at the clock. She had hoped to go all the way that morning, but apparently their little chess match had taken longer than she had expected. Maybe because of how defensively the short woman played. Maybe she had just lost track of time. Anyway, combined with the fact that Eun had a few business to take care of after lunch, that meant there wasn't really enough time left for properly bedding her. Granted, she had no guarantee that she'd have agreed to that anyway, but Eun was fairly confindent in her ability to seduce people. And Nisha didn't really give her the impression of being someone who'd have been opposed to that, considering how their interactions had gone up to that point.

"Want to eat something? I can't really offer anything more than a quick snack though"

"Why yes, how kind of you"

After hearing her response, Eun strolled to the next room, but only after having casually grabbed Nisha's dress and underwear along the way. The pink-eyed woman stared without saying anything, then giggled softly before following, a mixture of embarassment and amusement on her face.

The kitchen was smaller than the living room, but it could fit three, maybe four people at the same table almost comfortably. Paying no apparent attention to the clothes resting on her shoulder, Eun peeled a couple of red apples, opened a small bottle of milk and grabbed a couple of chocolates left over from the previous day before placing everything on the table.

"Help yourself"

Nisha looked at the window. On one hand, the curtain wasn't closed. On the other, that didn't really look like a lively area, quite the contrary actually, and the window wasn't even facing the road anyway. Still, the redness on her face grew just a tiny bit more in intensity.

"I sure will" she replied as she took a seat and started eating.

She seemed a bit reluctant to try the apples, but once the first bite revealed them to be rather sweet, or at least not really sour, she ate her fair share of them, maybe even a bit more than that.

"So, what do you think of chess? Did you like it?"

"It is quite... thrilling, I would say. I would not mind playing it again every now and then"

"Sure. Where did you say you live, again?"

"I did not say that, actually"

A brief silence followed, during which their gazes locked on to each other.

"... oh. Oh, dear me, my apologies. You so kindly invited me to your house and I never even told you where mine is. Those were some terrible manners on my side, I apologize"

"Oh, don't worry" Eun replied as she grabbed a chocolate. Noticing the way Nisha's gaze followed it, she decided to take her sweet time savoring it before swallowing it, and she saw her eyes trail down along her chest all the way to her stomach before being dragged back up to her face by sheer force of will. Or something like that, probably.

"With all of that said, however, I am afraid I do not have an house"

The fox raised an eyebrow.

"Where do you live exactly, then?"

"I tend to wander around from place to place"

"My, my, that sounds interesting"

"Is that so?"

"Out of curiosity, what do you do about money?"

"I have none" she replied with a somewhat confused look on her face.

"Figured as much. You said you lived in the Black Forest. Do you go back there to sleep?"

Nisha simply shook her head. A bit... slowly.

"... where do you sleep then?"

"Usually under a bridge" she replied, as calm as she could possibly sound, as if she had just said something perfectly normal.

_... what are you, a stray cat?_

"... alright, I guess. Do you have any plans for the afternoon, two days from now?"

"No, I do not"

"Great, because the landlord -well, landlady- of this area said you can drop by her place to say hi that afternoon. I can accompany you if you want, I have to go there that day anyway, might as well show you the way"

"That would be most appreciated"

"Perfect then" Eun replied as she got up "Now, I don't mean to sound rude, but there are a few things I have to take care of soon, so I'm afraid I'll have to see you off"

"I see. I thank you for your hospitality" she replied as she stood up, still covering her navel with one hand "But I do believe I will need my clothes back before leaving" she added as she held her other hand in front of herself, open and waiting.

The fox remained still a bit longer than needed, then grabbed the dress and underwear resting on her shoulder and gave them back to their owner, who turned around and started to put them on. Eun took the chance to give Nisha another close-up look before walking her to the living room, where she put on her footwear and placed the flower back in her hair, before accompanying her to the door.

"I'll see you at Henir's after lunch, two days from now then. Don't be late"

"I assure you, I will be on time. Thank you again for your hospitality"

"You're welcome"

"I hope you will go easy on me again next time" Nisha added with a smile that looked oddly cunning on her face.

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't" Eun replied with a smile too.

And with those words they parted ways. Or rather, Nisha walked away, headed to... somewhere. Eun closed the door, cleaned up the place a bit, closed all the windows, and only then decided to put back everything she had taken off during the game. Then she walked out, locked the door and headed her own way.


End file.
